The Environmental Chemical Sciences Program supports a travel award for 8-10 graduate students at US universities to participate in the 13th International Congress on Combustion By-Products and their Health Effects to be held at the Marriott at the Convention Center in New Orleans, LA in May 2013. This meeting brings academic, government, and industrial representatives together to present research findings, update international policy, and discuss critical issues concerning emissions of toxic by-products from the combustion processes. The International Congress has met every two years since 1990, the Congress usually attracts between 100 and 200 delegates from all over the world. The students will be selected by the Standing Organizing Committee for the conference based on need and the quality of abstracts submitted for presentation. Funds for each student will help defray travel costs for attending the conference. The availability of the travel cash awards will be advertised on the conference website and the call for papers.
This is a worthwhile endeavor that is fully supported by the Environmental Chemical Sciences Program. Environmental research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and this meeting is especially designed to bring together scientists, engineers, and health effects researchers to discuss the environmental issues surrounding combustion. The next generation of researchers must be familiar with these interdisciplinary issues to be successful. By encouraging the participation of students with significant travel and registration support, the next generation of researchers are being trained.
The 13th International Congress on Combustion By-Products and their Health Effects was held in New Orleans, Louisiana from May 15 to 18, 2013. This conference provides a unique platform for discussion of combustion related pollutants between engineers, chemists and biomedical researchers. A major emphasis of the congress is aimed at the training of new scientists through the participation in sessions, discussions and unofficial interactions with senior colleagues. The 13th congress was attended by ~100 scientists, researchers and regulators and discussed the most important issues related to the emission of pollutants from combustion sources and resulting impacts on health of the public at large. The topics of the conference included the effects of BP oil spill and oil residue burning, dosimetry problems with nanomaterials and nanoparticles, pollutants sampling and measurements and mechanistic aspects of health effects of pollutants. The major findings of the conference were published in the International Journal of Toxicology (Lomnicki, Slawomir, Brian Gullet, Tobias Stoger, Ian M. Kennedy, Jim Diaz, Tammy R. Dugas, Kurt J. Varner, Danielle J. Carlin, Barry Dellinger, and Stephania A. Cormier. 2014. Combustion by-products and their health effects- Combustion engineering and global health in the 21st century: Issues and challenges. Int. J. Toxicol. 33(1):3-13.).
