PAOC Spotlights

The faculty, graduate students, postdocs and staff of MIT’s Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate (PAOC) begin each year with a retreat supported by the Houghton Fund. The 2005 PAOC Retreat took place at the Snowy Owl Inn in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire over the weekend of September 28-30th.

Each year, the PAOC retreat centers its discussions and lectures around a particular theme; this year's was "From Tools to Knowledge: Research Methods in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate." This year, the PAOC Retreat Committee -- comprised of Ryan Abernathey, Pat Engel, Karin Lemkau, Laura Meredith, Brian Rose, Tatiana Rykova, Ariane Verdy -- invited lively speakers from MIT and elsewhere to engage the PAOC audience on this topic. Over the course of the weekend, Mick Follows, Arnico Panday, Alan Plumb and Sara Seager spoke from MIT, as well as Danny Sigman of Princeton University and Fiamma Straneo of WHOI.

In addition to research talks, the itinerary left plenty of room for more casual interaction between PAOC members. During their time at the Inn, faculty, postdocs and students had the chance to converse over a cocktail or enjoy various indoor and outdoor recreational activities -- such as golf, mountain biking and hiking around the White Mountains, and the town's 18th annual Chowderfest -- soaking in the experience before departing for Cambridge on Sunday.

Special thanks to the PAOC Retreat Committee for making this opportunity possible. Check out photos from this and previous retreats on our PAOC and EAPS Flickr pages!