Funds are provided to help support the Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (MTSM) Conference, to be held on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, May 31, 2010 -June 1, 2010. NSF Funds will be used to help partially defray registration costs for undergraduates, graduate students postdocs and faculty participants. The MTSM Conference will be a venue where the latest research in computational, theoretical and experimental thermodynamics and statistical mechanics is shared. The meeting draws participants from a huge section of the United States, and attendees range from established senior faculty members to undergraduates and new graduate students. Sharing research results and interacting on a deep personal level with other researchers is necessary to advance science and engineering, especially now that electronic communication has made many interactions with colleagues shallow and fleeting. Short, intense and focused meetings are especially useful for younger researchers, who can use these meetings to establish contacts and build collaborations with other researchers. The MTSM Conference has successfully helped build research collaborations among several groups in the Midwest region over the years, and it is anticipated that the 2010 edition will continue this tradition.
Broader Impacts:
For twenty years, the Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics Conference has been successful in facilitating meaningful field specific discussions and longstanding collaborations among researchers in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Part of the historical success of the meeting is the annual attempt to keep costs at a minimum by holding bare bones meetings at universities throughout the Midwest region. This proposal, combined with funds committed by Notre Dames College of Engineering and Graduate School, will provide funding to help defray meeting expenses and maximize participation. The opportunity to attend the MTSM meeting is especially important for early career scientists (undergraduates, graduate students, and newer faculty members) who will be able to participate in a focused meeting as a way to stimulate creativity and develop sustained collaborative relationships with colleagues working on related projects. In contrast to big national meetings or high profile meetings like Gordon Research Conferences, the 2010 MTSM meeting will be tailored to enable these kinds of personal and mentoring interactions. Four younger faculty members will give invited talks to their peers, 45 graduate students will be able to participate, with roughly 29 contributed talks, and a new feature will enable 15 undergraduate researchers to participate in a poster session and preview talk session where they will be given 5 minutes to highlight their work. Finally, up to 16 additional faculty members will attend, most serving as audience participants and mentors for the students in their group and others. These faculty members will represent a diverse set of colleges and universities, including some primarily undergraduate institutions, and a range of experience levels. This diversity is intentional. It provides an important forum for widening the research conversation in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics by including researchers from the point when their scientific interests are just beginning to the point where they can reflect back on a full career. NSF support for MTSM will enable students who might not have the means to attend such a conference to participate. A special workshop on applying to graduate school and how to apply for fellowships will also be offered to the undergraduate researchers.
The funds from this grant helped support the attendance of graduate students and postdocs at the 2010 Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics conference, held June 1-3, 2010 at the University of Notre Dame. Over 85 people attended the conference from a wide range of universities and national labs around the Midwest. Invited talks were given by Professor Aaron Scurto, University of Kansas (Global Phase Behavior and Equilibria of Ionic Liquids and Compressed Gases for Applications in Reactions) , Professor Becky Eggiman, Wheaton College (Simulating Aqueous Interfaces ) and Professor Clare McCabe, Vanderbilt University (On the Use of SAFT to Predict Phase Behavior). Contributed talks from students and postdocs supplemented the invited talks and an evening poster session was also held. The main objective of the conference was to enable researchers to share their latest research results with one another, help strengthen ties among researchers in the Midwest region and provide a forum where students could present their work and learn about the latest advances in the field. Funds from NSF helped defray some of the costs for students, thereby enabling many more students to attend the meeting than would otherwise have been possible. Expenses and fees were kept to a bare minimum to enable as many people as possible to attend and to be wise stewards of federal funds. Early registration fees were $100 for faculty, $50 for graduate students and $25 for undergraduates. The fees covered breakfast and lunch, an evening banquet and all conference materials. Housing in air-conditioned dormitories was also available for $47 / night (single) or $34 / night (double). Feedback from participants as to the quality of the meeting was very positive.
