Appendix F — How to attend a scientific conference

Authors: Janani Ravi & members of JRaviLab
Last updated: April 2026

Attending a conference is an investment — of time, money, and energy — by you, the lab, and often a funding agency. That investment deserves to be taken seriously. Done well, a conference can reshape how you think about your science, open unexpected doors, and leave you genuinely inspired. Done poorly, it’s a few days of jet lag and a tote bag. This guide is to help you make it count. So go in with an open mind and engage fully! DO NOT be indifferent — meetings (or labs, for that matter) aren’t the right place for this attitude.

Whether you are heading to a small focused meeting like CSHL Biological Data Science or GRC, or a large community meeting like ISMB or RECOMB, the principles are the same — the scale just changes.

F.1 Before you go

F.1.1 Know why you’re going

Be explicit with yourself (and tell your PI) about your goals for this conference:

Are you presenting (talk or poster)?
Are you recruiting collaborators, seeking feedback on a project, or exploring a new sub-field?
Are you job-market adjacent and want to make yourself known?
Are you early enough that the main goal is to absorb, get inspired, and understand the landscape?
What’s your career stage (junior: undergrad/early grad student; mid: advanced grad student/early postdoc; senior: ≥2Y postdoc or beyond)?
Are you going to engage — talk to people about their talks or yours? Meetings are to meet people. So if you are attending, please be prepared to do that!

All of these are valid. Knowing which applies to you helps you plan your time well.

F.1.2 Do your homework

Read the full program as soon as it’s posted. Identify the talks and posters most relevant to your work, and a few that are adjacent or new to you.
Look up speakers you want to interact with: what have they published recently? What is their broader trajectory? What questions does their work raise for you?
If there’s a keynote or invited speaker you’ve long admired (or never heard of), spend 30 minutes reading about them before you arrive.
Identify 3–5 people you genuinely want to talk to. For each, come prepared with: (1) a clear description of who you are and what you work on; (2) one scientific question connected to their work or yours; and (3) one career or professional question you can actually learn from them.

This prep isn’t just politeness — it’s what allows the conversation to be real rather than awkward.

F.1.3 Plan your schedule deliberately

Block out talks/posters you want to attend on your calendar before you arrive.
Note poster sessions — they are often where the most interesting science is happening, and the conversations are easier.
Leave buffer time. You will run into someone interesting in the hallway and want to keep talking. Let yourself; be organic.
For large meetings (ISMB, ASM), parallel sessions are unavoidable. Make choices in advance rather than deciding in the moment.

F.1.4 You represent more than yourself

Remember: at a conference, you are representing yourself, your lab, and your institution.

How you show up — how you engage, how you treat speakers and attendees, how you conduct yourself during talks — reflects on all three. Take that seriously. It is not a burden; it’s an opportunity to build the kind of reputation you want to have.

F.2 During the conference

F.2.1 Show up fully, be present, and stay

There is no point flying to a meeting and skipping half of it.

Pace yourself so you can be present for the whole thing:

Plan ahead to be fully present at the meeting.
Sleep enough.
Eat real food. Hydrate.
Know your own bandwidth for socializing and build in recovery time — especially for introverts. But introverts still need to actively prepare to step out of their comfort zone and talk to at least a few people outside their lab/university at each session.
That said: be there. Show up on time for talks. Attend the sessions you planned to attend & attempt a full schedule. Don’t disappear after your own poster session.

F.2.2 Taking notes

Bring a lightweight way to capture ideas — a shared lab doc (e.g., a Google Doc) works well and means your notes are immediately useful to others in the lab. Keep your phone/laptop use minimal during talks — distraction-free note-taking beats half-attentive live commentary.

Jot:

Key findings or methods that surprised you
Papers you want to read
Names of people to follow up with
Questions you didn’t get to ask
Ideas for your own work (or labmate’s) sparked from someone else’s talk

F.2.3 Engaging with talks

Ask questions — especially if you’re early-career. It’s one of the best ways to become known in a field. A good question is specific, genuinely curious, and brief.
If you’re too nervous to ask during the Q&A, catch the speaker afterward. This is completely normal and often leads to better conversations than the public Q&A anyway.
Be present and respectful during all talks, even ones outside your immediate area. You never know what will spark something.

F.2.4 Posters

Poster sessions are often the most high-value time at a conference. Walk the full session.

At posters:

Give the presenter a chance to give their pitch before you pepper them with questions.
Ask genuine questions. If you’re confused, say so — that’s useful feedback for them.
When it’s your poster: have different versions of your pitch ready. A 1-minute pitch for someone passing by who asks “what’s this about?” is different from a 5-minute deep-dive for a collaborator or expert in your sub-field. Know your audience — computational biologist, microbiologist, generalist, senior scientist, grad student — and adapt accordingly.
Don’t cluster only around posters from your own lab or sub-field. Be curious.

F.2.5 Meeting people: the hospitality model

Think about meeting someone at a conference the same way you’d think about welcoming a guest: with warmth, genuine attention, and preparation. Being aloof or giving one-word answers is not professionalism — it’s the opposite of how you want to be remembered, or how you represent where you come from.

If you’re an introvert and are thinking “I can’t do this spontaneously” — you don’t have to. Prepare a few phrases and openers in advance. Once you’re in a conversation, it usually flows. And if it’s a computational meeting, most people are like you — they will appreciate your preparation and thoughtfulness.

For hallway conversations, coffee chats, and meals:

Introduce yourself clearly: your name, who you work with, and what you’re working on — in one or two sentences.
Ask them something genuine about their work or career. People love talking about their science.
Take turns. Don’t monologue. Don’t pepper them with questions either.
Be open to unexpected conversations. Some of the most important connections start with “I liked your talk” in a coffee queue.

For meeting more senior scientists:

Prepare before you approach them. Know their recent work, their broader role, and what you genuinely want to learn from them.
Come with: (1) a crisp self-introduction; (2) one scientific question; and (3) one career question.
Be curious, not starstruck. Senior scientists were trainees once. Most are happy to talk to someone who has done their homework.
Don’t monopolize their time. A short, memorable conversation is better than a long awkward one.

After their talk or poster:

Specific praise or a follow-up question lands much better than a generic “great talk!”
“I was thinking about how your approach might connect to X — does that seem plausible to you?” is a great opening.

F.2.6 Going in with an open mind

The best conference experiences often come from the sessions you almost skipped. Go to at least one talk per day that is outside your immediate area. Let yourself be surprised. Some of the most important ideas in your research career may come from a field you weren’t expecting.

F.3 After the conference

Within 1–2 days of returning:

Follow up with the people you connected with — a short email (“enjoyed our chat about X, here’s the paper I mentioned”) goes a long way. Connect on LinkedIn if relevant.
Consolidate your notes while they’re fresh. Flag: papers to read, methods to explore, ideas to pursue.
Share highlights with the lab — a brief Slack message or lab meeting summary helps everyone, especially those who couldn’t attend. They might even help you with questions if you tell them where you plan to be!
Reflect on your goals: did you get what you came for? What would you do differently? What do you want to follow up on?

F.4 By career stage

F.4.1 Undergrads and early grad students

Your primary goal is to absorb and get inspired. You don’t need to have all the answers; you need to ask good questions and be genuinely curious.

Focus on:

Attending broadly — don’t just go to talks in your exact sub-field
Introducing yourself to at least 2–3 people you don’t already know
Coming home with a list of papers you want to read and questions you want to explore

F.4.2 Advanced grad students

You likely have a research story to tell.

Use the conference to get feedback and build visibility:

If you have a poster or talk, prepare it well in advance and practice multiple versions of your pitch
Identify potential collaborators or people whose methods could help your work
Start building your independent reputation — your name should begin to be associated with a specific scientific question

F.4.3 Postdocs

You are transitioning from trainee to peer.

Act like it:

Engage as a colleague, not a student — you have expertise worth sharing
Think strategically about who you want to meet in the context of your next career move
Seek out PIs who are hiring, future collaborators, and people outside your current network
Represent the lab and your own independent scientific identity simultaneously

F.5 Presenter prep (talk or poster)

(A more detailed guide is in the works — see also: How to make a poster)

A few essentials:

Have multiple versions of your pitch: 30 seconds (elevator), 2 minutes (casual intro), 5+ minutes (deep dive). Calibrate by who’s in front of you.
Know your audience for each conversation: computational vs. biological vs. mixed background; same sub-field vs. adjacent; career stage. Adjust accordingly.
Anticipate questions, especially the hard ones. Being caught off guard by an obvious question is avoidable.
Be honest about limitations. Reviewers and collaborators respect intellectual honesty far more than overselling.

F.6 A note on virtual and hybrid conferences

Virtual and hybrid meetings (Zoom-based, Gather, etc.) require extra intentionality since the informal scaffolding — hallways, coffee lines, poster walks — is missing or limited.

Do all the pre-meeting homework more carefully; the scheduled interactions are all you have.
Use virtual poster and networking sessions; don’t skip them because it feels awkward.
Follow up even more promptly — a quick post-talk message on Slack or email while the session is fresh is easy and effective.
Take breaks between sessions. Screen fatigue is real.

F.7 Conferences worth knowing (for our community)

Some examples across scales and scopes:

Focused/small: CSHL Biological Data Science, GRC (various), MLCB (Seattle), RECOMB satellite meetings
Regional: Great Plains Bioinformatics Conference, Rocky Mountain ASM
Mid-size: RECOMB
Large: ISMB/ECCB, major society meetings

Each type requires a slightly different strategy — at smaller focused meetings, nearly everyone in the room will know your work eventually; at large meetings, you have to be far more deliberate about who you seek out.