ISDA2019, the 7^th International Symposium for Data Assimilation 2019, took place in Kobe, Japan this year from the 21^st to the 24^th January at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science – home of the K-computer.  Attended by over 100 research scientists, the conference boasted a guest list of inspiring speakers and poster presenters from all over the globe. Topics of current relevance invoking enthusiastic discussion included Big Data Assimilation, Uncertainty Quantification, Satellite and Coupled DA, Multi-Scale Processes and DA in Broader Applications. Natalie Douglas attended and presented a poster on “Assimilating remotely sensed white-sky and black-sky albedos for the retrival of terrestrial canopy leaf area index and the clumping factor“.  A link to the programme with abstracts is here.  Natalie writes “I thoroughly recommend attending ISDA to anyone working in Data Assimilation. This was my first conference abroad, it was hugely informative and extremely well organised. Not only that, I had enormous amounts of fun getting to know and even making good friends with a lot of the key players in my field.” The group photo from the conference is shown below. Click on the photo to enlarge it. Natalie is in the front row just to the left of centre.