Changing of the Guard?
Jul. 11th, 2008 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quasigeostrophyWell, ICCP 2008 is now over. Tomorrow I have to be in the lobby by 7:15am for a long bus ride to Chichen Itza. I have no idea how long the tour is supposed to be or what time it's expected to get back to my hotel.
I noticed something this week that my advisor had talked about before, that I'm sure is present in any field. There's an Old Guard that runs the ICCP (International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation, a division of some other body which is itself a division of the World Meteorological Organization, which in itself is a United Nations body) - a handful of elderly cloud physicists who, with the exception of the committee president, have been pretty grumpy during presentation question and answer periods all week. Despite their pressing of the younger crowds to keep open minds, they have built up a lot of cynicism with age. There is a lot of age striation in the field as well - apart from the Old Guard, there are people around my and my advisor's age, and then post-docs and grad students in their 20s like my lab mate.
On the actual ICCP sits the Old Guard and a just couple of people in my age group who were voted on at the last meeting four years ago in Bologna. Apparently there was another opening that they voted on in private last night, and my advisor is now on the ICCP. Considering how she got grilled after her talk Tuesday morning, by some of the Old Guard, one of whom flat out told her he didn't like her modeling framework at all and she should do something else, I think that's pretty cool.
I noticed something this week that my advisor had talked about before, that I'm sure is present in any field. There's an Old Guard that runs the ICCP (International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation, a division of some other body which is itself a division of the World Meteorological Organization, which in itself is a United Nations body) - a handful of elderly cloud physicists who, with the exception of the committee president, have been pretty grumpy during presentation question and answer periods all week. Despite their pressing of the younger crowds to keep open minds, they have built up a lot of cynicism with age. There is a lot of age striation in the field as well - apart from the Old Guard, there are people around my and my advisor's age, and then post-docs and grad students in their 20s like my lab mate.
On the actual ICCP sits the Old Guard and a just couple of people in my age group who were voted on at the last meeting four years ago in Bologna. Apparently there was another opening that they voted on in private last night, and my advisor is now on the ICCP. Considering how she got grilled after her talk Tuesday morning, by some of the Old Guard, one of whom flat out told her he didn't like her modeling framework at all and she should do something else, I think that's pretty cool.
