This project funds travel awards to graduate students in logic to support their participation in meetings of the Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL) and those sponsored by the Association. The two main meetings of the Association, arguably the most important meetings in the field of logic, are the North American Annual Meeting and the European Summer Meeting (also known as the Logic Colloquium). The Association also meets annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, where it typically co-sponsors one or more events with the American Mathematical Society and/or the Mathematical Association of America, and on a rotating basis with one of the three divisions of the American Philosophical Association. ASL-sponsored meetings are held throughout the world. The Association works to ensure that its meetings and those it sponsors cover logic and its applications comprehensively, and that they represent the highest quality work being done in the field. They accordingly provide important opportunities for serious intellectual exchange, thereby serving as a stimulus to advancement of research. For graduate students in logic, the opportunity to attend any of these meetings is a vital component of their training and subsequent entry into the profession.
The Association for Symbolic Logic is the leading international professional society for logicians, whose membership includes researchers in computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. It organizes and sponsors a number of important meetings. Most prominent among these are its North American Annual Meeting and European Summer Meeting, both held annually. Recent sponsored meetings have taken place in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. The Association has actively sought to increase the range and number of meetings that it sponsors, a particular aim of which is to embrace new and emerging fields in which logic has come to play an important role, including computer science, linguistics, and cognitive science. This project will permit the continuation and appropriate expansion of a successful program of graduate student travel awards that the Association has administered since 1993 and that has been partially funded by NSF since 1997. The program has proved to be a highly effective means of bringing students in logic to important professional meetings at which they can meet and exchange ideas with leading logicians, as well as present papers on their original research. Approximately eighty-four percent of the awards funded by N.S.F. during the period 1998-2005 (the first N.S.F.-supported awards were made in 1998) went to students who subsequently have earned their Ph.D.'s in logic. Many of these awardees have obtained excellent postdoctoral and permanent positions. Several of the early award recipients already have served on ASL or ASL-sponsored meeting program committees and have been appointed to standing committees of the Association. Further information on the Association may be found on its web site: www.aslonline.org.
