WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the five year anniversary of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill approaches, oil spill-related experts from academia, state & federal agencies, non-governmental organizations and industry, will soon come together to highlight oil spill and ecosystem science research at the 2015 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference. The Conference, organized by a diverse group of partners, will take place February 16-19, 2015 in Houston, Texas and will focus on scientific content that seeks to answer, What have we learned? What does it mean? How can it be used?
The four-day Conference will consist of 19 scientific sessions with 270 oral presentations and 240 poster presentations. Topics to be covered include:
- Dispersant-oil chemistry, impacts and interactions
- New dispersant technologies and improved response tools
- Oil behavior under deep blow-out and high pressure
- Microbial ecosystems
- Data management, modelling and decision making
- Impacts on benthic communities, coastal ecosystems and ecological processes
- Public health and socio-economics
A searchable database of abstracts for oral and poster presentations as well as the full Conference schedule is available online here.
The Conference Keynote presentation will be given by Dr. Richard W. Spinrad, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chief Scientist, on Tuesday, February 17 at 8:30 a.m. CST. This will be followed by a special Plenary Session where the Principle Investigators of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative’s eight RFP-I Consortia will give Conference attendees a summary of their respective findings from the past three years. Several associated events and workshops will also be held throughout the Conference. For a full list, click here. The Closing Plenary, which will summarize the key findings presented during all of the sessions at the Conference, with an emphasis on Where do we go next?, will take place on Thursday, February 19th at 1:30 p.m. CST.
The registration fee will be waived for credentialed members of the media. Please send your contact information (name, media outlet, email, and phone) to Kristin Kracke and she will send you details on how to complete your complimentary registration online. Online registration will close on February 6, 2015.
For accommodation information, click here.
For more information, visit the Conference website and follow the Conference on Facebook and Twitter (#gulfscienceconference).