SUMMER 2024 NEWSLETTER

We are delighted to announce that the 13^th iEMSs conference will be convened by David Ayala-Cabrera and Soumyabrata Dev at University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland.

Dr David Ayala-Cabrera is an Assistant Professor at UCD, with a focus on civil engineering and environmental modelling. His research is dedicated to advancing sustainable infrastructure and improving water resource management.

Dr Soumyabrata Dev is an Assistant Professor at UCD, specialising in machine learning, computer vision, and remote sensing. His work is at the forefront of applying artificial intelligence to address pressing global challenges, including climate change and environmental monitoring.

UCD is Ireland’s largest university, blending over 160 years of history with modern facilities. The conference venue will be O’Reilly Hall within the main campus within Dublin City. Dublin is well connected to direct routes from Europe and North America and the city is well-served by public transportation. The conference location will offer a good range of accommodation options ranging from university halls to near-by hotels.

We anticipate that Dublin and Ireland will be an attractive destination for Society members. The Irish are world renowned for their hospitality and Dublin is a city of contrasts, blending historic charm with modern sophistication.

Conference dates are yet to be confirmed (our preferred dates are waitlisted) but will be in late June or July. Please look out for an announcement soon!

We look forward to seeing you in Dublin!

From 23 to 27 June 2024, we gathered on the Michigan State University (MSU) campus in East Lansing to hold our 12^th biennial conference with the overarching motto “Addressing Global Environmental Challenges Through Intelligent Modelling”. Our MSU colleagues had set up a great event with short connections between the meeting rooms and accommodation, and we were delighted to welcome more than 180 participants from 21 countries. On Sunday evening, we gathered for early registration and an icebreaker reception in the lovely outdoor grounds of the Kellogg Centre, and on Monday morning, we formally opened the conference with welcoming words from the MSU President and the Director of AgBioResearch, followed by a very engaging keynote presentation by Whitney Gravelle, President and member of the Executive Council of the Bay Mills Indian Community. Whitney focused on the most pressing environmental topics in Michigan and beyond from the perspective of an Indigenous community and the role that environmental science and modelling can play in finding solutions to these challenges.

Following a busy day of parallel sessions and workshops, we gathered for an opening reception. For the plenary session on Tuesday, we welcomed Barbara Robson, Leader of the Tropical Marine Water Quality and Impacts team at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, talking about ‘Assessing model “fitness for purpose” in the context of long-term change’. After a further set of parallel sessions and workshops, the iEMSs committee on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion met, and conference participants had the opportunity to meet the editors of SESMO and Environmental Modelling & Software to ask questions or discuss particular topics.

Our Wednesday was opened by another excellent keynote speaker, Mariana Rufino, Chair of Livestock Systems at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. She elaborated on the topic of “Smart Grazing: digital tech and models to improve the sustainability of livestock” and gave us her insights into the role of environmental software and modelling in agriculture, with a wider view of current challenges. After more sessions and workshops, we all gathered at the MSU Football Stadium, home of the Spartans, for our banquet and used this occasion to honor our awardees of Fellowships, Early Career Research Excellence prizes and the Biennial Medals, which had been selected as usual in the odd year (Fellowships) and earlier in 2024 (ECREs and Medals). Here, we also announced that iEMSs 2026 will tentatively be held in Dublin, Ireland, with details yet to be finalized.

Our final day, Thursday, started without a plenary session, and after several more parallel sessions and workshops, we gathered for a joint lunch and presented the awards for the best student presentations before closing the 2024 iEMSs biennial conference.