Signature Events
While we are always changing and growing as an organization, we have a few signature events we hold annually that make us who we are. Below you can learn more about these key events and when they are likely to take place.
Holiday Party
In December WAN hosts a holiday party to celebrate our amazing network and shine a light on women in water. We also select an incredible and talented woman to receive our Women of the Year award. This night is a fun, lighthearted, party that serves to honor our members and close out another year of WAN with dinner, drinks, a photo booth, and raffle.
River Clean UpS
Every summer we join or host a river clean up along the Anacostia or Rock Creek. In 2017, we were able to pick up about 100lbs worth of trash just in a few hours! Thankfully, this is less trash than was found during the 2016 river clean up.
Whitney Tome (Executive Director of Green 2.0. Principal at The Raben Group), Tiffany Crawford (Environmental Scientist for the Office of Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), Lisa Rom (Program Director for the Division of Ocean Sciences and the Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation), Trystan Sill (Program Manager for Work2Live WELL, Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Owner of Hilltop Life, LLC & Certified Life Coach), Jack Oliver (moderator, executive board member of Women’s Aquatic Network, senior regulatory scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water).
CHOW Event
Each Capitol Hill Ocean Week, the Women's Aquatic Network hosts a networking luncheon. In 2017, WAN added a panel discussion on fostering connections between freshwater, coastal, and marine communities. We continued this in 2018, and in 2019 were able to host tan incredible panel called Increasing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Coastal, Marine and Ocean Science Workforce.
MTS BBQ
Our most popular events is by far the MTS BBQ! Hosted by WAN and the Committee on Marine Transportation Systems, the BBQ serves as one of our more informal events. There is a live band, some door prizes, drinks, dancing, and even cake! We could not do this incredible event without the help of our Advisory Board Member Helen Brohl and the whole MTS team.
Professional Development Opportunities
The specific professional development opportunity varies, but you can always count on WAN to provide at least three professional development classes every year. Classes are usually themed annually. This way if you come to all the events, you have taken a full course on a subject, but if you can only make one or two, they are comprehensive enough you never feel like you missed out on a previous class. Some of our most popular in the past have included: Managing Up, Dealing with Difficult Work Situations, Salary Negotiations, and Preparing for an End of Year Review.
Dinner with a Champion
One of our newest, and quickly becoming one of the most popular, events is Dinner with a Champion. Four times a year this Members Only event brings a small group of people together to have dinner with an aquatic professional. Dinners cap at 8-10 people to ensure everyone has time to speak with our champion. So far, we have been lucky enough to host dinners with Holly Bamford, Denise Keehner, Nicole LeBoeuf, and Lois Schiffer.
Advisory Board member, Lynne Mersfelder-Lewis mentoring a young woman during our 2019 Speed Mentoring event held at the National Academy of Sciences.
Speed Mentoring
Every summer we join or host a river clean up along the Anacostia or Rock Creek. In 2017, we were able to pick up about 100lbs worth of trash just in a few hours! Thankfully, this is less trash than was found during the 2016 river clean up.