Advancing U.S. Quaternary Science by Supporting Early Career Scientists: 2019 INQUA Congress Travel Fellowship Program

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The National Academy of Sciences will support 10 U.S. Early Career Scientists' travel to the 2019 International Quaternary Association (INQUA) Congress through this Travel Fellowship Program. The quadrennial INQUA International Congress represents the foremost opportunity for Quaternary (last 2.6 million years of Earth's history) scientists from around the world to present their research and discuss the latest developments in their disciplines. Without this assistance these scientists could not normally participate. This Congress, which has a special programming thread for early career scientists, will give U.S. participants the unique opportunity to discuss their original research among their cohort of awardees and with U.S. and international scientists at all career stages. These interactions will likely result in improvements of the analysis of existing data, and the generation of ideas for the gathering of additional data and the construction of new hypotheses through disciplinary and interdisciplinary work. The broader impact of this fellowship program is in the exposure of the awardees to excellent international research and in giving them the opportunity to show their research at the international level. Such participation will likely foster international collaboration, keep them engaged, give them the opportunity to interact with preeminent scientists across the many Quaternary science subdisciplines, and foster interdisciplinary collaborations. These awardees can establish long-lasting scientific relationships as has happened in previous editions of the program. A mentoring component is also planned in which senior U.S. scientists help the awardees navigate the Congress and network effectively.The Board on International Scientific Organizations, part of the International Networks and Cooperation theme within the NAS Policy and Global Affairs Division, is home to the U.S. National Committee for the International Union for Quaternary Research (USNC/INQUA). The project will provide small travel fellowships to support U.S. graduate student and early career scientist participation in the 20th INQUA Congress to be held in Dublin, Ireland, July 25-31, 2019. USNC/INQUA will competitively award at least 10 travel fellowships at up to $2,000 each for U.S. citizens or permanent resident graduate students and early career scientists working on Quaternary research at U.S. institutions who are presenting papers as first authors at the 20th INQUA Congress and organize mentoring activities for the cohort. The process of selecting the travel award recipients will aim at increasing the active participation of those who have been traditionally underserved and underrepresented in the Earth sciences. This strategy is consistent with the goal of NSF's INCLUDES program. This program exposes awardees to the union and affords them the possibility of getting involved in the scientific and, eventually, governance activities representing the U.S. in INQUA. All of these fruitful interactions will advance U.S. Quaternary science.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.