This proposal requests funding from the National Science Foundation in the amount of $3000 to assist in the conference fees/travel expenses of worthy and relevant graduate students and postdoctorals to the 2003 Gordon Research Conference on Ion Containing Polymers. This conference will be held July 13-18 at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Conference co-chairpersons are Dr. Kenneth A. Mauritz, Professor. Department of Polymer Science, University of Southern Mississippi, and Dr. Claudine E. Williams, Laboratoire des Fluides Organis s, Coll ge de France. The sessions will include fundamental scientific presentations by a diverse collection of outstanding international scientists over the following range of topics: nanoscopically heterogeneous ionomers having tailored transport properties, polyelectrolytes having hydrophobic/hydrophilic sub-structuting and micelles, polyelectrolyte multilayers and brushes, amphiphilic copolymers, charged macromolecular self-assembly and supramolecular complexes. This request to the NSF is particularly for financial assistance that will be applied toward the conference fees and/or travel expenses of appropriate needy postdoctoral associates, or senior graduate students, in the amount of approximately $500 each. The goal of this assistance is to provide an educational forum and opportunily for the professional development of young researchers in higher education who are pursuing scientific careers in the important arena of ion containing polymers.
