How to make the most of a marine conservation conference

---

With Sharks International 2026 just around the corner, it's a great time to brush up on conference strategy especially if it's your first conference or, like so many of us, you haven't put much thought to it before 😅.

Here's something worth knowing before you walk through those doors: the most valuable thing that happens at a conference rarely happens inside a presentation room.

Conferences are for meeting people. The corridor conversations, the chance encounters over lunch, the moment someone on stage says something that sparks an idea you didn't know you had - that's where the real professional development lives. The papers will be published. The slides will be uploaded. The people? You only get to meet them now.

So let's talk about how to make that count.

Start before you arrive: know your "why"

Before anything else, take 20 minutes to get honest with yourself about what a successful conference actually looks like for you.

Are you there to present your work and get it in front of the right people? To find a potential PhD supervisor? To meet funders? To connect with conservationists working in a similar regional context who you've never encountered before? To finally feel less alone in this work?

All of these are valid. All of them are possible. But you can't chase all of them at once, and trying to will leave you exhausted and scattered by day two.

Pick one or two priorities. Write them down. Keep them front of mind when you're making decisions about where to spend your time: which sessions to attend, which meals to stick around for, which conversations to lean into.

This isn't about being transactional. It's about being intentional, which is something the field doesn't teach us nearly enough.

Do your homework on who's going to be there

Once you know what you're there for, figure out who matters to your mission.

Go through the programme. Look at the speaker list. If there are people whose work you've read, followed, or been inspired by - find out what they look like.

Check their lab page, organisation team page, their LinkedIn, their Instagram. You want to be able to recognise them across a crowded room rather than realising too late that you were standing next to them at the buffet.

Think about why you want to talk to each person, and what you'd actually say. Having a genuine, specific question ready makes approaching someone feel far less daunting — and far more natural. If they're giving a talk, that talk gives you an easy entry point: "I found your interpretation of X really interesting - can I ask what led you to that?" is a conversation, not an ambush.

A note on timing: senior researchers and practitioners at conferences are often catching up with colleagues they haven't seen in years. They're also usually tired. Read the room. If they're deep in conversation with people they clearly know well, that's not the moment. If they're in the queue for coffee and looking around? That's the moment.

Say hello to the person standing alone

Every conference has them. And if you've ever been that person - and most of us have at one point - you know exactly what it feels like.

If you see someone hovering awkwardly at the edge of a networking session, go and talk to them. Not because it's strategic. Because it's kind, and because you might have the most unexpected conversation of the week. You're working on reef sharks; they're researching cookie-cutter sharks. Who knows where that could lead?

Be open to the wildcard moments. Sometimes the connections that matter most are the ones you didn't plan for.

Don't spend the whole week in the talks

This one feels counterintuitive, but it's important: sitting through back-to-back presentations all day is not a good use of your time.

You could get most of that information by reading the papers later. What you can't get later is the face-to-face conversation with the person who wrote them.

Don't run from room to room trying to catch everything. It's stressful for you and disruptive for everyone else. Choose the sessions that genuinely serve your mission, and let yourself step away from the rest. The time you spend in the corridor, or at the poster session, or at dinner, is not wasted time - it is the conference.

Speaking of poster sessions: they're underrated. There's a strange assumption in our field that oral presentations are somehow more prestigious than posters, but it's just not true. Poster sessions are where you can have a real, unhurried conversation with someone about their work. You get a drink, you get a snack, and you get half an hour of depth that a five-minute post-talk chat can't give you.

Think of the conference as a starting point, not a finish line

You're not closing deals at conferences. You're planting seeds.

The goal of meeting someone at a conference is to make enough of an impression that when you follow up afterward (by email, on LinkedIn, with a specific question or idea) they remember you. They know your name. They know what you work on. The conversation you have now is what makes that follow-up email land.

So if you've been trying to catch someone all week and it just hasn't happened, don't force an awkward ambush at the end of the closing dinner. A simple, genuine introduction - "I've been hoping to connect with you about [specific thing] - I'd love to follow up online if that's okay" - goes a long way. Hand over a card if you have one. (If you don't, look up e-card apps like Hi Hello before you go - they're free and useful for exactly this situation.)

Manage your energy like it's a professional skill…because it is

A conference is not a sprint. It's closer to a week-long test of how well you know yourself.

If you're extroverted, you'll probably find energy in the social parts. But if you're introverted - and plenty of excellent conservationists are - constant interaction is genuinely depleting, and that's not a flaw. Build in time to step away. Go for a walk. Find a quiet corner. Don't push yourself past your limit and spend the last two days too exhausted to connect meaningfully with anyone.

However you're wired, end each day with a short reflection. Somewhere quiet, away from the evening events if you need to be. Ask yourself: did I move the needle on what I came here to do? Who did I meet? What do I want to do differently tomorrow?

This sounds simple. It's also the thing that separates people who get better at conferencing from people who just do it over and over the same way.

One last thing: show up as yourself

Dress smart-casual. Be clean and well-presented. Make the effort - first impressions are real, and they matter. But within that, be genuine.

People can feel when you're performing. They can also feel when you're genuinely curious about them and their work. The connections that last - the collaborations that form, the mentorships that grow, the friendships that sustain you through the hard years - those come from real conversation, not polished networking.

You belong in that room. You're going to learn from people around you, and people around you are going to learn from you. Go in knowing what you're there for, be kind to the people who seem like they're struggling, and don't forget to reflect at the end of each day.

You'll get better at this every time. That's kind of the point.