Student Participation in the 2019 NanoFlorida International Conference: ?Advances in Translational Nanotechnology"

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This proposal requests funding to support the registration and/or travel of undergraduate and graduate students and trainees across the State of Florida and the United States, so that they can attend the upcoming 2019 NanoFlorida International Conference. The College of Pharmacy Graduate Programs at the University of South Florida, Tampa, FL will host the conference with an aim to provide new perspectives on challenges and opportunities for improving nanotechnology applications in various sectors including medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, energy and environment sectors. The NanoFlorida Conference is a unique event with a long, successful tradition of student researchers sharing their discoveries in nanotechnology within the State of Florida. It includes all 12 State Universities including Florida A&M (a minority institution) and Bethune Cookman University, both historically black universities, and schools in the Florida State University System that have an enrollment of 60% women. For the first time, the NanoFlorida Conference, traditionally restricted to Florida, has been extended to include students from the USA and from around the world and thus renamed as the NanoFlorida International Conference. The conference will include symposia addressing advances on nanomaterials and devices for biosensing, and their applications in energy, medicine, and agricultural sciences; and provide new opportunities for students to network with researchers from academic institutions and the broader nanotechnology industry. NSF funding will reimburse the registration fees and/or travel of up to two hundred students, enabling more students to participate. This in turn increases the beneficial impact of these new professional development activities for students.The conference will 1) create a forum for researchers in fields of nano- and nanobio- technologies for scientific exchange and to help identify emerging challenges at the frontiers of nanoscience and nanotechnology; 2) promote and foster collaborative research ties and networking opportunities within the nanoscience communities in Florida, across the US, and globally; 3) foster and encourage collaborative research efforts between academicians from different Florida universities and institutes and beyond nationally and internationally; 4) forge strong industry-academia partnerships in the field of nanoscience and nanoengineering technology to promote market driven research and innovation in Florida and beyond; and 5) encourage and showcase the contributions of undergraduate and graduate, students and postdoctoral trainees by creating a student-friendly event where they can present their research among their peers thereby ensuring a new generation of nano-bio scientists. Thus, the conference will have a dominant student component with an emphasis on participation, enhancement of leadership and success. Students will meet researchers from other schools and from industry, and these professional relationships will provide long-term benefits to students' careers in STEM fields. NanoFlorida conferences are an educational experience that reveals to students the latest nanobiotechnology research and its applications. Learning about nanobiotechnology, developing communication skills, and networking with researchers from academia and industry are important steps that prepare students to join the nanotechnological workforce upon their graduation. Post-conference surveys and the publication of presenter research will serve as a measure of the success of this conference.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.