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Published on Tuesday, 09 November 2021 06:37

We have missed, immensely, gathering in person for the annual Gateways conferences, and cannot wait to do so again in 2022. In the meantime, there are some noteworthy benefits that have emerged from meeting online again in 2021. So here we go, some silver linings:

• We were able to offer the conference for free!
• You could turn your hair pink or green without actually turning your hair pink or green when building an avatar in Gather Town.
• We welcomed a larger-than-usual number of international participants.
• It was 100% acceptable to wear pajama bottoms during the conference.
• Recordings of all sessions, both pre-recorded and live, are available on YouTube in the Gateways 2021 Playlist.

The Gateway 2021 conference was online October 19-21 and offered diverse opportunities for interaction via Gather Town. There were 260 people registered for the conference, and we counted a total of 168 participants between the various sessions. The conference program featured 4 tutorials, 4 panels, 12 live lightning talks (in addition to 12 that were pre-recorded), 4 working sessions, and 2 opportunities for social interaction and discussion. Check out the proceedings on Zenodo!

Attendees included faculty and researchers, students, international participants, and even a high school student. SGCI intern Matthew Casertano, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland, said the experience of presenting at a conference has had a huge impact on him.

"I'm a high school student who, for more than two years, has been interning with Dr. David Fushman (University of Maryland), and working extensively with Dr. Emre Brookes (University of Montana). My work has focused on designing NMRSuite, a GenApp-generated science gateway for modeling and analysis of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) data.

I participated in both Gateways 2020 and 2021, and learned a lot about the incredible work that other researchers in the science gateways community are doing. At Gateways 2021, I had the opportunity to give a 10-minute lightning talk presenting my research. The preparation I did for this lightning talk helped me think about my research from different perspectives, giving me new ideas. I've also been able to network at the conferences, allowing me to meet new people with similar interests.

I love science gateways because I feel that they emphasize the collaborative aspect that is so critical to science. With gateways, programmers and scientists can efficiently collaborate on projects according to their respective strengths and weaknesses. Using GenApp, I have been able to make tools for protein analysis and modeling more widely available among the scientific community, facilitating research and the scientific process. Overall, my participation in Gateways conferences has given me a greater appreciation for collaborative research."

Sponsors from previous conferences were invited to contribute sponsor content for Gateways 2021. We received informational videos from XSEDE, CloudyCluster, HUBzero, and Trusted CI. These can be viewed in the Gateways 2021 Playlist on YouTube.

Gateways 2021 by the Numbers

• 4 tutorials
• 4 panels
• 12 live lightning talks
• 12 pre-recorded lightning talks
• 191 authors
• 260 registrants
• 168 attendees
• 4 sponsors
• 3 pre-recorded educational gateway features

Stay tuned for an announcement about Gateways 2022, coming soon! Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated.