A team of social scientists from across three programs in OAR – the National Sea Grant College Program, the Climate Program Office, and the Office of Weather and Air Quality – are banding together to launch a new initiative aimed at enhancing the social science research capabilities and coordination across NOAA Research (OAR) units. These calls will be a complement to a new Social Science Learning Series NOAA will be launching next spring, offering a community of practice specifically for researchers. This effort is going to start small, and we hope you can join us in it.

Our team plans to organize webinar/teleconferences once per quarter with the following objectives:

• Share applied social science research findings from our labs, cooperative institutes, Sea Grant and Climate programs, competitive research programs, and RISA networks;
• Share best practices for supporting and conducting research at the physical-social science interface

In so doing, we envision that this effort could achieve the following objectives:

• Enhance the coordination of research between those with similar research interests and among those who are working cross NOAA Research units in similar regions;
• Help research entities with interests in social science, but who are not yet involved, to learn how they can get more involved.

The meetings will be facilitated via GoToWebinar, and should last about an hour each.

Past Webinars:

1. Climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes: lessons from the more-or-less real world
December 1, 2016
Speaker: Stuart Carlton, Texas Sea Grant

2. Warnings and Extreme Weather Events
April 19, 2017
Speaker 1: Rachel Hogan-Carr, Nature-Nurture Center
Speaker 2: Michael Egnoto, University of Maryland

3. Developing and Using Vulnerability Assessments
September 20, 2017
Speaker 1: Kirstin Dow, University of South Carolina
Speaker 2: Jenna Jorns, University of Michigan

4. FACETs Social Sciences
June 12, 2018
Speaker 1: Kim McClain, PhD, Research Scientist, CIMMS Societal Applications Coordinator and NSSL Societal Impacts Group Team Lead
Speaker 2: Kodi Berry, PhD, Hazardous Weather Testbed Executive Officer and Sea Grant Extension Liaison CIMMS/NSSL
Speaker 3: Jill Gambill, Georgia Sea Grant & University of Georgia Marine Extension, Coastal Resilience Specialist and Public Service Faculty