The purpose of this competing renewal of our conference travel grant is to continue to facilitate student/postdoctoral fellow involvement at the meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP). The mission of ISDP is to promote and encourage research on the development of behavior in all organisms, including humans, with special attention to the effects of biological factors operating at any level of organization. The epigenetic underpinnings of both normal and abnormal development are targets of study. We are requesting partial support of the travel expenses of up to 30 pre-doctoral and 20 postdoctoral students for attendance at the annual meetings of the ISDP over the next 5 years. The 2011 ISDP meeting will be held in Washington, DC, just prior to the Society for Neuroscience meeting. Our meetings over the past five years have been enormously successful, due in no small part to the travel grant from NIH that provided partial support for students and postdoctoral fellows to travel to these meetings. Attendance by student/fellows, as well as by underrepresented minorities, has grown steadily in the past 5 years. ISDP encourages active student participation in a variety of ways. Students receive a significant discount in membership and registration fees. Social events limited to students are arranged at each meeting. Perhaps most importantly, travel award winners are invited to present select data in a single slide 5- min talk, which introduces the awardees to the entire membership and facilitates interactions at the students' posters. There has been a highly enthusiastic reaction to these brief, protected talks (questions must wait until the poster session). ISDP and the journal's publisher fund other awards that help maintain involvement of the most capable young scientists in the society. Awards are given for the best dissertation, best young investigator, and best student paper published in the journal. Students and postdoctoral fellows are the lifeblood of our society. Indeed, many of the senior members of ISDP first became involved in the Society as students. Continuation of travel support from NIH will have a major impact on our ability to bring the brightest students and postdoctoral fellows to this meeting. The present proposal requests 5 years of support to continue to provide funds for partial support of travel for student and postdoctoral fellows to the ISDP annual meetings. Obtaining multiple year support will encourage a culture of active participation at the ISDP meetings among graduate students at various universities, which will prolong the impact of the grant long after the period of support requested.
This travel assistance program for young scientist to attend the annual meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology is directed at fulfilling the continuing congressional mandate for ensuring there are adequate numbers of highly trained scientists to meet the nation's biomedical and behavioral research agenda. The program also meets NIH priorities for promoting translational research by emphasizing the integration of basic and clinical research approaches.
