MRM is a weekly reading group for faculty, postdocs, and students interested in the behavior of rocks, minerals, and melts throughout the Earth (and other planets). This provides an informal setting where we discuss papers from a broad range of topics including mineral physics, petrology, and geochemistry, in addition to occasional works from adjacent fields such as geophysics and planetary science.
##Wednesdays 1-2 pm - Wilson Library (CCL 4510)
###contact Aaron Wolf (aswolf_at_umich.edu)
###to be added to the email list
##This week…
##TBD
##Description: The group is participant driven: I collect paper suggestions from you and the discussion leader role rotates from week to week based on interest. I will post your suggestions of future potential papers to the paper list, along with suggestions of my own. For those worried about another commitment, this is not meant to be time-consuming. Each meeting should be an open discussion where the leader is responsible for reviewing the main points of the paper and helping the discussion continue moving along. No slides are necessary.
Beyond reading papers that interest the participants, this group provides a place where students can develop their critical thinking skills and practice talking about research. If you find that you are too embarrassed to ask questions or talk to other researchers at conferences, this is the perfect place to practice. Students are encouraged to enroll in the class (but it is not required). The expectations for enrolled students are quite reasonable:
- regular attendance (at least 75%)
- participate in discussions through questions and comments
- lead discussion at least once/semester
- suggest 2 potential papers that interest you
- write a 1 page description of one of the papers (presented by someone else) summarizing the research and focusing on why it is important; this should be done after our discussion
Basically, participate and engage with the discussion!