PALEON is a new program with the goals of integrating data from paleoecological and long-term historical vegetation studies; identifying statistically robust trends in these data; and assimilating these empirical trends into terrestrial ecosystem models (PALEONproject.org). The initial scope of PALEON is the last 2000 years of forest history in Northeastern US (and adjacent areas of Canada) from the Atlantic Coast to the Great Plains. This special session will provide background on current activities in PALEON, then open a conversation about how we might engage the broader communities in paleoecological, statistical, and ecosystem modeling research.