2024 Oikos Finland PhD of the year
Each year Oikos Finland awards the prize "The best PhD thesis in ecology and evolutionary biology in Finland". The winner is awarded 500€
and is also invited to give a presentation at the next national Oikos meeting. Now we are inviting nominations of high-quality PhD theses that were defended during the academic year 2021-2022 (1.8.2022-31.7.2023). Anyone is welcome to nominate a PhD thesis,
including the thesis author and the supervisors. The deadline is 15.11.2023. If you have any questions, please ask Satu Ramula (satu.ramula@utu.fi).
Interested in organizing the 2025 Oikos Finland conference?
The next Oikos Finland conference will be organized in early 2025. If your university is interested in organizing and hosting the event,
please contact any of the
Oikos Finland board members as soon as possible.
Nordic Society Oikos conference in Lund
The next biennial conference of the Nordic Society Oikos will be held in Lund, Sweden from 12-15 March 2024. The conference will be held
at AF
Borgen in the picturesque area Lundagård in
Lund, southern Sweden. Registration and abstract submission will open on October 12th. Please see the
conference
website for more information.
Finnish Molecular Ecology Symposium 2024
Please mark your calendars for the Finnish Molecular Ecology Symposium that will be held in Joensuu 24-25.4.2024. Registration will open
soon and more info is available on the symposium
website.
Advertise your event through the Oikos Finland newsletter
If you have a science/ecology related event that you would like to get exposure for, Oikos Finland members are welcome to contact our board
members to get the word out in our Oikos Finland newsletter.
We have updated our website with a
description
of the travel and event organization grants available from Oikos Finland. For example, if you are planning to travel to the Lund conference in March (see above) our travel grants
are a possible way to finance your trip. The fall deadline this year for travel grants 31.10.2023. We will announce a spring term deadline in February. Event organization grants can be applied for throughout the year.
Reports from our previous grant recipients:
European Meeting for PhD Students in Evolutionary Biology,
May 22-27, 2022 Espoo, Finland
OIKOS grant enabled me to take part in the EMPSEB27 conference. I presented my most recent research (The
associations between brood size, gut microbiome diversity and nestling survival in great tit nestlings) and was able to follow my colleague’s presentations and plenaries. This gave me a lot of ideas regarding my own research and I made valuable
contacts within my own field. Additionally, I was able to learn about new research in fields that I am not too familiar with thanks to the conference having a broad range of topics across the field of evolutionary biology. I would like to thank OIKOS for giving
me this grant as without it I would not have been able to take part in the conference.
Camila Souza Beraldo
PhD student at the University of Helsinki, Finland
I am delighted to have had the opportunity to attend EMPSEB27. During this conference, I observed an extremely committed
organizing team, excellent keynote talks, and impressive PhD students' presentations. In management terms, the organizing committee's attention to promoting a more integrative and fairer event surprised me. For instance, just after arriving, students were
invited to pick their name tags and to decorate them with stickers that would say a bit about themselves (e.g., which year of the PhD they are, whether it is their first time in Finland or if they are looking for a job). Such decoration not only helped with
the sense of "being seen" but also promoted small talks among attendees. In addition, the committee members provided the option to attend the meeting remotely in case one could not join in person. Having the opportunity to join the event online may seem a
minor detail; however, it promotes inclusivity because it increases the number of people who can participate in discussions.
EMPSEB27 selected a diverse range of students and plenary speakers that varied both in the background and research interests:
Dr Stuart Auld (University of Stirling, Scotland), Dr Rose Thorogood (University of Helsinki, Finland), Dr Ovidiu Paun (University of Vienna, Austria), Dr Swanne Gordon (Washington University, USA), and Dr Peter and Rosemary Grant (Princeton University). Their
talks were stimulating and made me think about topics I am not used to. In addition to that, I also had the opportunity to learn about subjects I work with, e.g., which type of analysis I should perform to improve my results and which theory I should study
better. Finally, students' presentations brought me innovative perspectives on how to give a good 12 minutes-talk. I could reflect on adjusting the speech to the target audience, public engagement, how much detail to provide, and how to create informative
slides.
In addition to the talks, EMPSEB27 also promoted other sessions, such as posters, alternative presentations, diversity and
inclusion panels and diverse workshops. Creating such spaces is essential to bringing new ways of perceiving science to academia. For example, during the poster and alternative presentations, while playing or doing some artwork, one could reflect that those
activities created emotions that permeate their bond with the scientific process. Being in contact with different viewpoints on interpreting science brings us diverse teaching and learning experiences, which can potentially change the community to which we
belong. Besides the scientific content of EMPSEB27, I was glad about the amount of interaction promoted during the event. Students and plenaries were able to taste a bit of the Finnish culture while participating in social activities (e.g., team-building exercises,
karaoke, trivia, sauna, enjoying Finnish nature). Although I have been based in Helsinki, Finland, for more than two years, I was happy to have such interaction with the Finnish culture. I have the feeling that the pandemic of COVID-19 delayed my experiences
in Finland, and because of it, sometimes I still struggle to feel welcome in the place I am currently living in. Thus, I am grateful to EMPSEB27 for contributing to my academic repertoire and helping with my confidence in the country where I chose to do my
PhD studies.
Ina Satokangas
PhD student at the University of Helsinki, Finland
The OIKOS grant enabled me to participate in EMPSEB27, one of the first live conferences after a long COVID break. EMPSEB27
was a well-organized and inspiring event, where I learned a whole amount about relevant new research and gained experience in presenting my own work on wood ant hybridization. I truly enjoyed learning from other doctoral researchers and plenary speakers and
getting new ideas as well as concrete advice for my own work. The workshop on data visualization provided me with new tools, and alternative careers discussion with inspiration for looking further ahead on my path. A live conference showed perhaps its best
part through allowing real discussions with colleagues from all over Europe and beyond.
PhD student at the University of Helsinki, Finland
I attended the EMPSEB27 conference held in Espoo between May 22nd and 27th. The conference was organized by and for PhD Students in Evolutionary
Biology, and I had the honor of receiving an OIKOS grant to attend this event.
The conference was extremely well organized – everything from the transportation to the event venue to plenary speakers was clearly very well
thought-out. Each day, I got to listen to an amazing plenary speech, and I had the chance to attend two workshops during the conference week. The workshops taught me new ways of visualizing my abstracts, as well as data visualization using R – both extremely
important skills. However, I would still put the main focus on the extremely interesting works of my fellow PhD researchers.
Our (attendees) presentations were divided into appropriate subcategories. I got to hear about pathogens, evolutionary drivers, diversity and
sexual selection just to mention a few of these. The conference was also elevated with a poster session, where everybody had the opportunity to present their work in a more timely manner, and I got to have really enlightening one-on-one conversations with
my peers.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed attending this one-of-a-kind conference with amazing people, interesting ideas and a great atmosphere. As a first
year PhD student, I feel like the conversations I had and the talks I listened to really helped my further develop my plans and come up with new ideas. I will eagerly try the new concept of visual abstracts, and seek to further include population genomics
into my future work – both of these ideas would not have crossed my mind without attending this conference!
5th Nordic Society of Oikos, 7.-10.6.2022
Doctoral researcher, University of Helsinki
I had a chance to participate in my first NSO meeting, the 5th Nordic Society of OIKOS 2022 conference in Aarhus, Denmark.
The meeting was themed Ecology and evolution for a changing world and covered a wide range of interesting topics. Oral presentations, posters and keynote talks addressed the subthemes of adaptations
and interactions, ecosystems and communities, restoration and landscape prioritization, and methodological advances. Overall, the conference was a great experience – not least because it was organized in person. I participated a pre-conference workshop on
ordination methods and generalized linear modelling and learned new tips for data analyses. The conference provided an excellent overview on ecological and evolutionary research conducted by the society members. I also had a chance to present my work on wood-inhabiting
fungal communities and deadwood restoration. I went home with a lot of new ideas and inspiration after meeting many new people and discussing science related to my own field of research and beyond. I also think that participating in a live event after a long
period of online meetings created a valuable feeling of community.
Post doctoral research, University of Helsinki
From the very start the atmosphere of the NSO conference in Aarhus was welcoming and all arrangements run smoothly. I really liked the ice
breaker event during which conference participants chose to visit either the Natural History Museum or the green houses of the Science Museums. I chose the green houses, and as we walked through the botanical wonders, discussions with any person close by were
easily initiated. I had my own presentation already on the first day in the form of a three-minute flash talk in which I guided the audience through tundra species occupancy, niches, and traits across spatial scales. Flash talk was a new experience for me,
and I found it fun. It is quite hard to squeeze an entire study to a few key points, though I think it is a very effective way to really think through and point out the most important take-home message one wishes to make. After my own presentation there was
nothing but to relax and enjoy all the interesting talks in the sessions, topics ranging from life on Mars to 3D habitat structures, as well as discussions during the breaks between them. Particularly I liked the vivid poster sessions. It was a pleasure to
get together with people I met two years ago in Reykjavik and even more so to gain many new acquaintances. Overall, I think NSO is a great community and I want to warmly thank OIKOS Finland for supporting my participation in Aarhus.
