The rise of the virtual chemistry conference
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, online talks and poster sessions are moving to the mainstream
On 18 March, Sian Fogden donned a dark blue suit and red shoes and headed straight to Women in Graphene, a conference she was co-ordinating, to join her colleagues at the help desk. Only the conference was in a 3D virtual environment. The dark blue suit was worn by Fogden’s online avatar.
Women in Graphene was among hundreds of scientific conferences that were cancelled as Covid-19 spread across the world. While many meetings were postponed, some proactive organisers instead moved to new online venues. In the process, they may have inadvertently helped to usher in a new era of science communication.