Berkeley Lab postdoc association (BLPA) supports about 800 postdocs at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, representing six research areas from computational science to environmental science. Getting to know people at the lab, outside of your team and department, may be challenging, especially for early-career scientists who have just changed their environment. BLPA puts together a wide variety of events to build a strong and supportive postdoc community. In our poster, we will present how BLPA strategically builds-up a comprehensive activity program to address the different needs of our community. We cover both: our activities before shelter-in-place as well as our virtual program that supports our community needs during the pandemic. In person meetings include monthly Bay Area hikes and sports activities (curling, kayaking, bowling) with small groups of postdocs (10-30); monthly get together at the Lab during working hours, but also outside the lab, during evenings or weekends. Since we started working from home, we implemented a comprehensive virtual program to make sure that our postdocs have the possibility of social interactions despite the social-distancing order. We provide 3-5 activities each week, including game nights, movie nights with Netflix party, a Zoom lunch, a virtual bake together and a cultural lunch. In addition, we created a language exchange program with one-on-one matchings for different language needs. To make sure that everyone feels included, our social committee organizes a Labmate matching for new postdocs. These activities bring a sense of community at the Lab and foster the feeling of belonging there. We have found that postdocs who participate in BLPA events get more involved in Lab activities afterwards as they begin to feel part of a large friendly community. This poster will summarize four years of community building at BLPA with a special focus on virtual activities. This poster will be directed both for PDA and PDO.
