This award supports up to thirteen graduate students and/or postdoctoral trainees to attend The 10th International Society for Salt Lake Research (ISSLR) Conference, May 11-17,2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The triennial conference brings approximately 100-250 scientists together from around the world in an environment that encourages interdisciplinary exchanges between microbiologists, geologists, geochemists, toxicologists, limnologists and ecologists. The primary goal of the meeting is to share the advances from each of these fields with the hope of fostering interdisciplinary research that will advance understanding of the chemistry, geology and biology of hypersaline environments in a mutually beneficial forum that brings students and senior researchers together. The meeting will also provide activities that will facilitate student networking and the overall scientific training experience.
The venue for ISSLR provides a number of opportunities (e.g. meals, poster sessions, mid-conference field trip) for students to interact with scientists from all over the world; these interactive meetings that foster collegiality can play an important role in recruiting and retaining a diverse pool of students. Student recruitment will target underrepresented groups by advertising via the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography's Multicultural Program and the American Society for Microbiology online (including the Minority Affairs online newsletter), the Microbe magazine, and distribution via the NIH list-serv focused on to minority scientists. This broad coverage will reach various levels of scientist in addition to women and minority scientists. Additionally, each chair of the special sessions will also send out a call for participation that highlights the student activities and awards at the meeting, and will specifically encourage participation by underrepresented groups.
