Early career representative column: Young scientist and student paper activities at URSI GASS 2021

It can be said with no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted in-person conference activities worldwide. Similarly to 2020, the year 2021 was a challenging year, with COVID-19 measures across the globe posing severe restrictions on people moving around and meeting in person. In this context, the URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (GASS) 2021 was conducted in hybrid mode. The Young Scientist (YS) Awards were also granted and the Student Paper Competition (SPC) was held. In this ECR column we feature two short reports on the Young Scientist Awards and the Student Paper Competition. These reports were kindly provided by the Young Scientist Panel, consisting of Phil Wilkinson (Chair), Petervan Daele, Stefan J. Wijnholds, and Inge Lievens; and Sembiam R. Rengarajan (Chair of the Student Paper Competition), respectively.