R2-D2 made his annual visit to the exhibitor’s hall at The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Conference in December 2016. With approximately 24,000 attending, this is the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world (https://fallmeeting.agu.org/2016/). EMPOWER trainees Emily Baker, Robin Glas, and Alexa Stathis traveled to San Francisco to attend the meeting, network, and present their research.

The titles of the posters reflect the range of research topics EMPOWER trainees participate in:

Emily’s poster: The Effect of Channel Geometry and Diurnal Discharge Fluctuations on Modeled Stream Temperatures

Robin’s poster: Integrating multiple geophysical methods to quantify alpine groundwater- surface water interactions:  Cordillera Blanca, Peru

Alexa’s poster: Photolysis Kinetics of Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylenes at Ice Surfaces*

*Alexa’s participation in the AGU meeting was funded by an EMPOWER Professional Network Development Grant.