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Kevin Becker

Report of GLOMAR PhD student Kevin Becker about his participation in the 26th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry (IMOG 2013), Tenerife, Spain, 15 – 20 September 2013

In my field of research, the International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry is the largest and most important conference (600 participants from all over the world with more than 90 oral and more than 400 poster presentations). The conference took place from 15th to 20th of September 2013 in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Spain.

The conference covered a wide range of topics from Biogeochemistry to Petroleum Geochemistry and brought together scientists from both academia and industry with diverse expertise and perspectives. The sessions that were highly related to my PhD project were (i) “benthic processes” and (ii) “analytical methods”, and I contributed to the former session by presenting a poster entitled “Microbial lipids in the deep-sea hypersaline anoxic Discovery Basin, Eastern Mediterranean Sea”. The possibility to discuss my recent findings about microbial life strategies in one of the most extreme marine environments with experts in the fields of astrobiology and biogeochemistry, opened new perspectives on how to interpret my data and resulted in a prospective collaboration with international colleagues who are working on closely related topics. The posters were displayed on two full days, which provided ample time for in-depth discussion of the most recent scientific achievements. Additionally, I contributed to the session “analytical methods” by being the second author of an oral presentation held by Julius Lipp from MARUM, University of Bremen. This talk summarized the development of analytical methods for microbial membrane lipid analysis in complex geological sample matrices, which have been developed in our lab during the last three years. These innovations were recognized as a major step forward and the talk led to fruitful discussions about new opportunities for biomarker research.

In addition to the oral and poster presentations, short courses by world experts, for example “stable isotope geochemistry” by Stefan Schouten from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and moderated discussion forums during extended lunch breaks were a feature of the meeting, which stimulated interactions among delegates.

During the conference, I also had the opportunity to meet one of my thesis committee members from Harvard University face-to-face to discuss the progress of my PhD project and my future plans.
Beside the scientific part of the conference, several social events were organized, such as the ice-breaker party, concerts and the conference dinner. During these events, I took the chance to get to know other PhD students and senior scientist in a more relaxed atmosphere and to exchange ideas with them.

I thank GLOMAR for funding this conference trip. The participation in the conference definitely pushed my research forward because the IMOG gave me the opportunity to discuss aspects that are relevant to my work with researchers from different disciplines and specializations in the field of organic geochemistry.