Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium: An Interdisciplinary and International Forum for Future Leaders in Polymeric Materials, March 22-26, 2009, Salt Lake City, UT

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AbstractTechnical Merit: Advances in polymeric materials continue to catalyze our nation's future critical technologies ranging from charged polymers in biomedical devices and water purification membranes to conducting polymers for sensors and alternate energy solutions. Multifunctional polymeric materials require our fundamental understanding at length scales ranging from nanometers to centimeters. Our constant attention to fundamental structure-property-performance relationships is critical for our continues success and societal impact, and research strategies demand an interdisciplinary and teamed vision for both rapid and integrated solutions. It is this interdisciplinary strategy that will enable new discoveries in polymer science and engineering. This research proposal will allow our future leaders, who ae currently graduate students from leading universities across the United Staes, to assemble in a unique international forum of polymer science and engineering. Oral presentations and interactive poster sessions will address key research areas including theory and molecular modeling, polymer design and synthetic strategy, polymer characterization using state-of-the-art techniques, engineering of polymer-based devices, and fundamental understanding of the interface of polymer chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Moreover, this forum will encourage scientific network building and raise the awareness of the necessiry for interdisciplinary research to younger polymer scientists and engineers. The symposium will occur at the 2009 spring national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. The proposed NSF funding will permit the attendance of some of our leading graduate students, ensure diverse participation, and showcase the importance of interdisciplinary research for solving some of the more complex questions that face our scientific community.Broader Impact: University and commercial laboratories immediately recognize the importance of interdisciplinary research; however, the opportunities for university students to truly experience an interdisciplinary meeting of science and engineering remain limited. For example, many younger students are not provided with the opportunity for an oral presentation at an international meeting. Recent attention from the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) organization has enabled the formation of Graduate Research Seminars (GRS) in polymeric materials; however, attendance is often limited due to their unique pedagogy and more thematically focused programs. An encompassing symposium entitled "Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research" will provide an open forum for international scientists and engineers to cultivate an international spirit of collaboration. The forum will serve to recognize leading graduate student researchers and provide a mechanismf or reasearch partnerships to evolve in a grass-roots fashion. The symposium will offer an educational experienc where students will be able to benchmark their research strategies and presentation skills, and participants will raise their awareness of emerging themes at new boundaries of polymer science and engineering.