ASLO's new early career program makes waves at the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting and beyond. There are many fulfilling careers relying on the expertise of aquatic scientists. The demand for multi-disciplinary talent across academia, government, industry, not-for-profits, and the private sector is growing—yet pathways into our field remain opaque for many students. To address this need, ASLO, with funding from the Schmidt Ocean Coalition and the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, has launched a new professional development initiative that builds on ASLO's decades of experience fostering the next generation of aquatic sciences leaders, the ASLO Emerging Fellows. Our vision and intent for ASLO Emerging Fellows is to bring the perspectives and talents of underrepresented groups to bear on urgent challenges facing rapidly changing aquatic ecosystems, while helping emerging scientists identify their career paths and succeed in obtaining fulfilling, needed, and well-compensated positions across aquatic science professions. Through this program participants can identify their interests, expand their network, and find employment and opportunities globally, including beyond academia. One of our goals is that Emerging Fellows find a welcoming home within our society and engage with and enrich ASLO. The name of the program reflects our vision that participants will be on a path towards the holistic excellence embodied by those members ASLO recognizes as ASLO Fellows and Sustaining Fellows. ASLO's leadership in recruiting and retaining the next generation of aquatic scientists is essential to a thriving scientific enterprise and our service to society at large (e.g., see Nelson 2026). ASLO has a long and distinguished history of supporting student and early career aquatic scientists (Franco-Santos et al. 2024). Aquatic science research is foundational to stewardship and sustainability that safeguards humanities' profound reliance on aquatic environments, including for food, transportation, and energy, along with our dependence on a healthy ecosystem not least for spiritual nourishment. The research ASLO members conduct is in direct support of these needs and provides expertise to understand, explore, protect, and manage fresh- and saltwater environments; ensures sustainability of aquatic environments and resources; as well as predicting and mitigating impacts from extreme weather events, harmful algal blooms, and the many effects of climate change and forever pollutants. ASLO is the largest scientific society solely dedicated to aquatic sciences and scientists, with over 3000 members worldwide and more than 70 years of demonstrated excellence. Leveraging ASLO's outstanding strength in both supporting the science and scientists is one of our societies many contributions to strengthening aquatic sciences. Through the ASLO Emerging Fellows we want to build on ASLO's leadership in aquatic sciences research and education to provide support for early-career scientists. Importantly, we can now consider international applicants and students in transition stages between educational and career milestones. In addition, ASLO's interdisciplinary roots position us to support members for the full breadth of aquatic science careers. The opportunities in our field are remarkably broad, spanning from traditional academic research to engineering, policy, social sciences, communication, and the arts. The ASLO Emerging Fellows provides comprehensive mentoring, skill building, networking, and professional training to early career researchers from undergraduate students to early post-doctoral fellows. Our vision pairs immediate, high-impact conference participation with sustained, long-term career building. We believe this two-pronged approach will help emerging scientists identify their ideal career paths and succeed in obtaining fulfilling, needed, and well-compensated positions in aquatic sciences. Beyond individual success, we aim to bring the perspectives and talents of underrepresented groups, including first-generation college students, to bear on the urgent challenges facing rapidly changing, impacted aquatic ecosystems—a benefit to ASLO Emerging Fellows participants and our field. The program launched as a pilot with twelve students attending the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) in Glasgow, Scotland (22–27 February) (Fig. 1). ASLO Emerging Fellows were fully integrated in the conference, presenting in scientific sessions and attending conference programming. In addition, ASLO Emerging Fellows were honored with their own eLightning session for a broader introduction to the community (Fig. 2). The ASLO Board of Directors took time to meet each Fellow personally. At OSM 2026, in addition to presenting in and attending scientific sessions, ASLO Emerging Fellows participated in workshops on topics including career pathways, resume building, publishing, and data sharing. They also attended a morning event “Career Conversations and Coffee” organized by the ASLO student board members at large, to broaden participation and expand their mentor network. Since October 2025, ASLO Emerging Fellows have participated in a continuing immersion program that encompasses professional skill building, mentoring, and networking opportunities delivered as remote monthly webinars. This aspect addresses the critical need to go beyond conference attendance, which is transformative but time limited. Sustained support is needed to solidify skills, manifest relationships, and translate experiences and impressions into concrete career advancement. For this, we leverage ASLO's infrastructure and member expertise. The program operates building on ASLO's decades of experience, dedicated volunteer network of top-tier experts across aquatic science and science-adjacent careers, and our track record of excellence in journals, conferences, and member support. We envision ASLO Emerging Fellows to grow into a standing program with the monthly offerings made available to the broader ASLO community. These opportunities will be disseminated via ASLO's communication channels, social media, and society partners. Offered webinars build on ASLO's proven successes in facilitating collaboration and member support, including our popular webinar series “Voices for Well-Being” (Bizic et al. 2023) on professional well-being, along with webinars that support skill building on delivering effective presentations and developing scientific publications. Many webinars are open to the broader ASLO community, amplifying impact and taking the conversation beyond the Fellows themselves. Topics to be covered include navigating mentorship, scientific identity, building a resume and a mentor network, scientific writing and publishing, managing challenges such as procrastination and imposter syndrome, science communication and outreach, facilitating collaborations and interdisciplinary research. ASLO Emerging Fellows is guided by Dr. Jeanette Davis, also known as Dr. Ocean (Hampton University), a marine microbiologist and best-selling children's science book author. “I'm excited to help create pathways of access, confidence, and connection that will support emerging scientists as they navigate and grow in aquatic sciences,” Davis says. Our ability to launch ASLO Emerging Fellows is critically built on the generous support ASLO has received from both the Schmidt Ocean Coalition as well as the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation. Given the unprecedented challenges facing science and building the next generation of scientists today, ASLO is deeply grateful to partner with these foundations to support an essential effort that fortifies the future of aquatic sciences. The need for cutting-edge career training and access to aquatic-related careers is urgent and enduring. To ensure the Emerging Fellows Program thrives, we look forward to growing and building ASLO Emerging Fellows, integrating what we learn from this pilot phase and expanding so that we can have the maximum impact and benefit as many early career scientists in our community as possible. While we piloted ASLO Emerging Fellows with 12 students, the program is designed to scale. Given the opportunity, future iterations may expand fellow cohort size, adapt the curriculum, explore partnerships with other organizations, and evolve the program based on the Fellows' feedback and emerging needs. The ASLO Emerging Fellows program advances ASLO's core mission: to foster a diverse, international scientific community that creates, integrates, and communicates knowledge across the full spectrum of aquatic sciences. We invite you to learn more on ASLO's website and to follow updates from our Fellows on ASLO social media. We thank ASLO's Executive Director Teresa Curto, Business Manager Mik Bauer, AGU President Brandon Jones, and the ASLO Board of Directors for their support in launching the ASLO Emerging Fellows. We are indebted to the Schmidt Ocean Coalition and the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation for their generous funding of the ASLO Emerging Fellows. The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation supports individuals who explore and ask through fieldwork in natural sciences, create and captivate as they promote mastery in craft, teach and try as they support students in public education, and conserve and connect as they encourage care for our food systems and natural world. Learn more about the Foundation's partners and work at www.Maxwell-Hanrahan.org.
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