Led by the consortium of the South Central Climate Science Center (SC CSC), this project developed and implemented a professional development workshop for graduate students, post-docs, and early career researchers within the SC CSC region. The objectives were to: (1) introduce participants to the goals, structure, and unique research-related challenges of the SC-CSC and its place within the U.S. Department of the Interior and the larger CSC network, offering them insight into how their research fits into the broader research priority goals and its eventual applicability to end user needs across the region; (2) provide an opportunity for participants to present their research to fellow peers; (3) facilitate interdisciplinary interactions between participants within the SC-CSC purview in an effort to foster collaboration opportunities; and (4) generate a set of digitally recorded presentations on the SC CSC enterprise, a “how to” guide for conducting similar workshops, and a collection of project outlines from small group discussions for internal use. The desire is to remove the institutional barriers, or “silos,” at an influential time of development for early career professionals and to build a cohort who can continue networking through their research pathways and who can understand and eventually lead outcome-oriented, interdisciplinary research.
