The 2026 CIRES Science Summit took place on Thursday, October 1, 2026 and was attended by the NC CASC’s Jane Wolken, Imtiaz Rangwala, and Hailey Robe. This summit brought together researchers and staff from across CIRES to encourage collaboration across internal networks, increase awareness of existing research, outreach, and engagement efforts, and identify areas for future growth and exploration. 

The first half of the summit was spent in working groups discussing challenges and opportunities across several scientific themes,including environmental data science, science communications, and observational tools and methods. Participants considered existing strengths, shared challenges and opportunities to better connect expertise and resources across CIRES.

During the second half of the summit, participants moved into “World Café” style discussions to exchange ideas across the different thematic grounds and identify opportunities for collaboration. These conversations provided a chance to connect scientific research with broader questions about how information is shared and how expertise across CIRES can be leveraged more effectively.

For the NC CASC, the summit offered useful perspectives for strengthening connections between science, communications and engagement while also identifying opportunities to collaborate with colleagues across CIRES.  We look forward to incorporating these insights into our ongoing science and communications efforts.