News from the PALSEA leaders about the future of the PALSEA working group.
(Email sent by Natasha Barlow on 27 June 2023)
"Dear PALSEA community
We wanted to update you on PALSEA activities and leadership, now the formal phase of PALSEA as current PAGES and INQUA working groups finished in early 2023.
Alessio, Jacky, Jeremy and I consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have had the honour of leading the PALSEA community since we took over from the PALSEA2 leaders in 2018. Covid-19 of course presented some major challenges, but it has been a delight to see the community thrive and grow during that time (from ~200 to over 300 members on the mailing list). We have seen senior scientists work hard to lead the IPCC AR6 report on behalf of the community, ECR’s go on to become established researchers both inside and outside academia, and the next generation challenging established ideas and developing exciting new hypotheses.
We wish to thank all those who have supported PALSEA meetings, workshops and training schools; in particular Bob Kopp, Emilie Capron, Robin Edwards, Nicole Khan, Matteo Vacchi, Alex Simms (twice!), Aron Meltzner, Adam Switzer and Ben Horton, plus the financial support received from PAGES and INQUA (and other supporting institutions). This support is vital to the success of PALSEA meetings. In addition, the PALSEA scientific steering committee has been an important source of support and guidance – thank you. However, the PALSEA community itself is the key to its success and we want to thank you for all the interesting science and conversations. There has been a huge body of work published by the diverse PALSEA community, with over 100 papers citing PALSEA over the last 5 years https://pastglobalchanges.org/taxonomy/term/116/publications alongside community GIA benchmarking and sea level database initiatives.
It is time for us to pass on the baton to a new leadership team and we are delighted to say that Tamara Pico, Matteo Vacchi, Lauren Gregoire and Juliet Sefton (ECR rep) will be taking over PALSEA leadership from the INQUA 2023 Congress in July, onwards. We will actively support this transition, and wish them all the very best for the future. Given the large amount of in-person meetings already scheduled for 2023, and the GIA training school, it was felt that a pause for a year was required and there will be no dedicated PALSEA workshop in 2023. However the new leadership team will be looking to develop new activities from 2024 onwards (subject to funding support).
Thank you all and best wishes
Natasha, Alessio, Jacky and Jeremy"