My Conference Experience

By Geraldine Ibe, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria and Cohort 3 CIRCLE Visiting Fellow, University for Development Studies, Ghana

Geraldine Ibe was awarded a CIRCLE Visiting Fellowship to conduct research at the University for Development Studies, focusing on forest food species in the tropics, savannah and mangrove forests. Here, Geraldine presents her inspiring journey to present her CIRCLE research at the University of California, in the United States of America.

I had always wanted to be a lecturer with a difference, especially in the research world! My dream was to travel around the world while still performing my duties as a lecturer. As I look back at my success story through my CIRCLE journey, I cannot help but be filled with gratitude on being able to attend a conference in the United States of America. It was filled with exciting and memorable moments. After my CIRCLE Fellowship at UDS Ghana, I had scaled hurdles to find outstanding conferences, it was not very easy. I sent in my Abstracts to about three different conference organizers at the time and finally my abstract was accepted for “The Tenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses at the University of California, Berkeley, USA April 20 to 21, 2018”. 

After considerable scrutiny, I got an invitation to attend and present at this noble conference, to say that I was not excited would be a shocker right? Guess what? I WAS NOT EXCITED! One would wonder why, in the recent events of predatory journals and conferences, I had developed cold feet towards this one as I thought this could be one of them. But that ‘still small’ voice kept re-assuring me that this was it! I got my invitation letter quite late after a long wait from abstract reviews. This was exactly two months to the conference date. Even at that, I still ignored my mail for another one week. I finally embraced my fears and decided to have a look at my invitation letter and then decided to do a background check on the organizers by verifying the authenticity of the conference programme. Like the saying goes, “success doesn’t just come and find you, you have to go out and get it”. Therefore, I made a lot of international phone calls, I sent out series of mails to institutions in the United States, I did a lot of Google checks; I just needed to ascertain how real these people were before requesting for financial support from my sponsors – CIRCLE.

The CG Network is situated at University Research Park, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA and these organizers are a group of very credible University professionals who have been curating conferences and publishing peer reviewed journals for over 30 years whereby they operate on a hybrid open access model. While 72% of their journals are indexed by Scopus, the remaining 28% are new titles currently under review. I immediately wrote to the ACU for funding request as time was already running out on me, Verity was so helpful and absolutely proactive to my request. As soon as I got approval, even without the immediate arrival of my funds yet, I had to courageously pay for my US visa fees and I began to apply for my USA visa interview with fingers crossed. Alas! Available appointments on the Embassy platform had exceeded the conference date. I took a bold step! I pulled the bull by the horn! How did I do that? I wrote to The US Embassy in Nigeria and requested for an Emergency appointment. Surprisingly, I was responded to within 24 hours and I was given the option to choose my preferred date within one week of the response. Everything happened so fast. I hurriedly left for Lagos for my interview, and I was SUCCESSFUL! I was granted a 2 year Multiple Visa to the United States, all these happened with my persistence, determination and relentless efforts, also great support from ACU, especially Verity Buckley, Mr Ben Prasadam-Halls and other team members behind the scene! I had only 14 days left to finish preparations and leave for the United States; I eventually made it to the USA, successfully passing through the immigration and customs without a hitch. I flew to San Francisco, California via Atlanta Georgia and I arrived at the conference center on the arrival date. 

We had the opportunity to introduce ourselves, I did introduce myself, and all about my CIRCLE research work. I talked about my sponsors, DFID, ACU in collaboration with AAS and VITAE. I enlightened the forum about CIRCLE, and what it stands for - Climate Impacts Research Capacity and Leadership Enhancement. I met and networked with other delegates from different parts of the continents and it was a humbling experience. On the second day of the conference, I delivered my findings which were drawn from my CIRCLE research work and my topic was “Anthropogenic Activities and Climate Change: Impacts on Rural Dwellers”. 

At the end of it all, I got my conference certification together with other presenters at the conference. Overall, the conference programme was very insightful, rewarding and educative. Meanwhile, as a result of my brilliant presentation in the last conference, the organizers have been sending me mails to attend again next year for the “Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses at Pryzbyla Center, The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, USA in April 2019”. Unfortunately, this time, I have no sponsorship yet. Nevertheless, I am totally grateful for this huge opportunity given to me by CIRCLE to be exposed academically and to be in forefront of researchers who are passionate about solving problems that pertains to Environmental Management. CIRCLE has also helped me to become a committed, creative and highly motivated individual who has passion for networking and collaborative research with an uncompromising commitment to quality and outstanding research work. In all, I thank everyone who has made it possible for me to have a success story throughout my CIRCLE journey – DFID, ACU, AAS, VITAE, UDS Ghana and MOUAU Nigeria and to George Lakey who encouraged me to share my humble conference experience. Thank God!