The year 2008 marks the 60th birthday of Professor Alan Plumb of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To celebrate this occasion his colleagues are organizing a symposium and will be publishing a symposium "Festschrift" volume. The symposium will be held at Columbia University in New York City, on Friday and Saturday, October 24-25, 2008. It will run a day and a half, and consist of a dozen invited talks; an international roster of speakers has been invited to give presentations. The symposium will cover the current state of knowledge on the stratosphere, and will include presentations on dynamics, transport and chemistry. A book will be published as an American Geophysical Union Monograph in the fall of 2009 summarizing the review talks given at the symposium.
This grant will support the travel and participation of graduate students to attend the symposium. Special efforts have been made to host students from underrepresented populations, and to encourage women participation at the symposium. Invitations have been broadcasted to the entire atmospheric science community via email lists from the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union.
