We have designed an in-person workshop of 30-40 participants to follow the SICB symposium in Phoenix. While the symposium and the Integrative and Comparative Biology volume will highlight the state of the science in various disciplines, the workshop is intended to realize a broader and grander vision of facilitating transdisciplinary research through the production of white papers, grant proposals and syntheses that will truly move the field forward. We expect that the interactive nature of a workshop will truly have a multiplicative impact.

Participants in the workshop will consist of symposium presenters, selected associates of the presenters, and additional participants to further expand disciplinary breadth as well as racial and ethnic diversity. Each research group represented in the symposium program will bring two participants to the workshop. In cases where a senior member of the research group will present at the symposium, a more junior scientist will also be supported to participate in the workshop. Among the 30 participants who have already confirmed their participation (including the PIs), five are assistant professors, and six are at the student/post-doc stage. We are preparing additional invitations to further diversify disciplinary composition. With but one presentation, paleontology is under-represented at the symposium because of the limited number of symposium presentations that can be accommodated and the neontological orientation of the Society. We will therefore incorporate at least two additional paleontology research groups to the workshop. We will also offer support for workshop participation to up to three scientists at the graduate student or postdoctoral stage who are: 1) members of underrepresented racial or ethnic groups; and 2) presenting a complementary contributed paper or poster session.

The workshop will be in-person on the day following the symposium, and will continue as virtual meetings for a half year. All identified participants have indicated their willingness to travel to Arizona for the in-person workshop. Some may in the end be unable to attend the workshop, and there may be others whom workshop attendees would like to include in the Halo-DaSH collaborative. For these reasons, and to ensure that momentum is maintained, a series of online group meetings will be held after the workshop.

The in-person workshop will include all-group and small working group activities (see below). Six working groups will be formed of five or six members each. Each working group will be devoted to considering questions outlined under the collaborative’s objectives listed above; hence, one or two working groups will consider transitions, other working groups will consider transformations, and yet a third set of working groups will consider threats. All working groups will be tasked with also considering questions within the fourth objective of diverse collaborations. We will prepopulate working groups according to their area of expertise, but will also ask participants in advance how they would like to contribute, and we will thereby seek an equitable distribution of participants among topics while accommodating strong attractions towards topics as well. We will also ask participants, well in advance of the event, to offer additional questions for working groups to consider. To maximize cross-fertilization, teams will be split up so that senior and junior participants from the same research group will be in different workshop working groups. Each working group will be invited to focus on the questions outlined in this proposal but will of course be free to address additional questions that may interest them.

Workshop schedule

Time	Event
8:00-8:30	Introduction–Eric Schultz and Lisa Park Boush; setting the stage for the workshop, framing the questions that will be addressed in the breakout sessions and presenting pre-workshop survey results from the participants.
8:30-9:00	Discussion of Symposium Presentations–we will have a debrief from the symposium and follow-up with any discussion items that might have  been brought up the day before during the presentations.
9:00-11:00	Breakout Groups–A leader and rapporteur will be assigned to each group with the task of addressing the major questions outlined above, plus adding new questions relevant to the theme. We will use Google Docs and Jamboards to organize the groups’ discussion.
11:00-12:00	Report Back–the group will reconvene and report out their discussion.
12:00-1:00	Working Lunch–groups will be mixed from their morning breakout groups to share and discuss with one another.
1:00-3:00	Breakout Groups–Identifying Gaps and creating Action Plan–groups will reconvene and discuss gaps and needs and create an action plan for addressing the research questions and directions.
3:00-4:00	Report Back and Next Steps–groups will report back and discuss next steps. Assignments for follow-ups will be made and timelines constructed for achieving the goals set, including setting schedules for online meetings.