Conference Proposal: Support Student and Early Professional Attendance to the 2020 North American Ornithological Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico

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The study of birds (Ornithology) tends to be divided among many scientific societies that each focus on birds of one or two countries. This is a problem because birds are found almost everywhere and move great distances in migration. They ignore national borders. Scientists from different countries who study birds (ornithologists) would thus benefit from working more together. This is hard to achieve because travel to distant meetings to form new partnerships can be financially prohibitive, especially for young ornithologists, who are the future of the field. This project will support travel by students and early career professionals to the 7th North American Ornithological Conference (NAOC) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 10-15 August, 2020. The conference theme, "Flight Paths Addressing Global Challenges", and its Caribbean location will bring together ornithologists from across North, Central and South America. They will meet to talk about many topics, including migration, conservation, ecology and evolution. Scientific highlights will include a keynote address by a famous ornithologist, plenary talks, and four days of presentations on a wide variety of topics. The conference will attract many participants from Puerto Rico, who are often unable to afford meetings in the continental United States. There will be five mentoring activities, about 20 workshops targeted at young participants, and involvement of the public in multiple activities. This project will help fund travel of more than 60 participants. Funds from NSF will augment funds already provided by the convening societies, to leverage an extraordinary level of participation by ornithologists from Latin America and the Caribbean. Many of them will be joining participants from North American ornithological societies for the first time. More than 1,300 attendees are expected, representing academia, non-profit organizations, and diverse government agencies, and including eight ornithological societies from North America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the New World Tropics. Several initiatives in this conference build on lessons from previous ornithological conferences to instill trust and develop infrastructure necessary to coordinate understanding and protection of birds, and the environments on which they depend, throughout the Western Hemisphere.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.