THE YOUNG EARTH SCIENTIST (YES) MOVEMENT IN ACTION: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE YES NETWORK

As we all are aware, there is a crisis in the earth sciences. The workforce is decreasing in size as senior scientists reach retirement age, and there are not enough young scientists to fill in the gaps. More importantly, with the age gap in the geosciences, institutional knowledge is lost, and young scientists are left to reinvent the wheel or replicate the mistakes of previous generations. Out of these fundamental ideas, The Young Earth Scientist Network (YES Network) was born. The mission of the YES Network is to encourage and enable young earth scientists to collaborate and share ideas on a global platform while building mentorships with senior scientists. With the success of the YES Congress in Beijing, China, an international conference for early-career geoscientists, the YES Network has a solid base from which to build. The major challenge for the YES Network is to turn the vision into reality.