This award will support student and postdoctoral scholar travel expenses for the 19th International Meeting on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA19), which will take place September 23-27, 2013 at Arizona State University. This conference emphasizes topics that bridge computation, biology, and nanotechnology and attracts top researchers in the fields of Computer Science, Mathematics, Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Nanotechnology.
The primary purpose of these funds is to provide assistance to students and postdoctoral scholars who are delivering oral or poster presentations at the conference. The process of selecting the travel award recipients is intended to give priority to women and underrepresented minorities, in addition to supporting quality research presentations.
Intellectual merit: The topics of the DNA computing and molecular programming conference include control of molecular folding and self-assembly to construct nanostructures; demonstration of switches, gates, devices, and circuits with biomolecules; molecular motors and molecular robotics; computational processes in vitro and in vivo; studies of fault tolerance and error correction; synthetic biology and in vitro evolution; software tools for analysis, simulation, and design; as well as a range of applications in engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Scientific discoveries discussed in this conference should eventually produce important new technologies and new nanoscale manufacturing techniques for materials and devices, new medical biosensor and therapeutics, and new models for understanding organization and complexity in biological systems.
Broader impact: The travel awards will help to foster the development of the next generation of molecular programmers, by encouraging students and postdocs to attend, present their work, and interact with other important players in the field. There is a unique blend of theory and practice at DNA computing and molecular programming conferences, from a range of academic disciplines. Attending this conference will allow the students and postdocs to gain an understanding of the process of creating and developing novel scientific ideas.
The primary purpose of this award was to provide assistance to students and postdoctoral scholars who delivered oral/poster presentations at DNA19, the 19th Annual Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming, which took place from 9/22/13 to 9/27/13. The conference emphasized topics that bridge computation, biology, and nanotechnology and attracted over 150 top researchers in the fields of Computer Science, Mathematics, Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Nanotechnology. The symposium was intended to foster interdisciplinary research in molecular-scale manipulation of matter and has a tradition of encouraging participation by students and junior faculty. The process of selecting the travel award recipients was intended to give priority to women and underrepresented minorities, in addition to supporting quality research presentations.40 outstanding student and postdoctoral scholar applicants, from US institutions (excluding ASU), were awarded funds for travel and accommodations, with an average award of $500 USD per individual. Approximately 30/40 awards have already been processed, and the remaining awards are currently (or will be within the next 3 months) being processed by the financial services department at ASU. The outcome of this award was the participation of 40 junior, highly qualified researchers from at least 20 top tier Universities around the US. At least 1/4 of the awardees were women and underepresented minorities. One of these female researchers was awarded a top prize at the conference for the quality of her work: Moya Chen from Caltech was awarded the Best Paper Prize. By funding travel to students and postdoctoral scholars we aggressively encouraged and incentivizied a fresh generation of researchers to attend the conference. The travel awards helped to foster the development of the next generation of molecular programmers by encouraging junior researchers to attend, present their work, and interact with other important players in the field. The long term benefits to the field of such a forum are obvious. The organizers strove to ensure that only the highest quality work was presented at the conference and that students and young scholars were exposed, and subject to, these high standards. This exposure allowed them to gain an understanding of the process of creating and developing sound scientific ideas. At DNA19, young scholars saw that the leaders in their field are devoted to the idea of producing the highest quality interdisciplinary research. A full day of tutorials at the beginning of the conference facilitated students' understanding of work from a variety of fields.
