The Trant Team is organizing THE SECOND ANNUAL ASOCIAS (Annual Southern Ontario Chemistry Industry-Academic Symposium) on November 17th 2023 from 10 AM to approx. 4:00 PM. It will be virtual once again this year. This is to minimize disruption and to keep costs low in the inflationary mess we are all going through. We would like to invite all interested students, postdocs, faculty and staff to join us at this event. You and your team can join from the comfort of your own office chair with your favourite snacks and food.
The industrial partners we have approached have shown very significant excitement about this event and the opportunity to meet all of us…again.
We are looking to have attendees from research groups from all the schools between Windsor and York present as attendees. We have successfully arranged lead speakers from major international companies across three (industrial) research areas: Medicinal Chemistry (Merck); Process Chemistry (Gilead); and Computational Chemistry (Schrodinger). In addition to these main presentations from major international employers, we are also organizing shorter presentations from Canadian employers talking more about the state of the industry (and job prospects) here in Canada, and we are going to couple these presentations with an online meeting space for CV workshops. In our experience the job application process for industry vs academic jobs (and the nature and length of CVs, resumés etc) is very different, and many students at our institutions do not have the exposure to industrial mentors that could advise them. We are seeking to help Southern Ontario chemistry students gain exposure to the research done at companies nationally and internationally, and to connect them with industrial advice so that they can become a part of this research in the future.
We received very positive feedback from attendees last year, and a lot of interest from other Canadian employers who really felt left out and wanted to attend to meet and recruit our students. There are many reasons students may want to stay in Canada following graduation, and connecting employers with employees is highly valuable to all.
Our current outline of the event will feature 3 × 45 min presentations from the larger companies, 3 × 15 min presentations from the smaller Canadian employers, and a 2 h period for CV workshops.
Please let us know about your interest in attending by registering for a free ticket at our website. As we confirm the schedule, this website will become increasingly populated. Please however, only register for a ticket if you look to attend some or all of the day. It does cost us a bit per person to host the GatherTown meeting we are using for the CV event, so it is best if we have an accurate count.