This grant will provide partial travel support for five U.S. students or post-docs to attend the 2nd Beijing Normal University International School of Quantum Gravity, to take place from August 13th to August 18th, 2012. The students will be selected by a committee of leading experts in the field. These funds will simultaneously aide these students and post-docs to optionally attend the XXIX International Colloquium on Group-Theoretical Methods in Physics (GROUP29), which will have a loop quantum gravity session, and which will be held from August 20th to August 26th at the Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, not far from Beijing.
The broad impact of this proposal will be in the preparation of human resources. Most of the courses taught at the BNU school are not taught at U.S. universities. Attendance at this type of conference is a formative event in the preparation of the new generation of U.S. researchers in the field.
The main activity of the project was to provide financial assistance to U.S. students and young post-docs to attend the 2nd Beijing Normal University International Summer School on Quantum Gravity, which took place in Beijing, China from August 13th to August 18th, 2012. This school provided a unique opportunity for the students to learn in-depth about cutting edge research areas in quantum gravity, taught by world experts in a pedogogical manner. Five U.S. doctoral students were selected for partial funding from among the applicants by a committee of experts in the field from Florida Atlantic University, Louisiana State University, and the Pennsylvania State University. In addition to providing the students with a unique opportunity to broaden their knowledge in ways that directly supported their research, the school also provided these students with the opportunity to make new research contacts, potentially leading to new collaborations helping to solve outstanding problems in the field. The broad impact of this proposal is primarily in the preparation of human resources. Most of the course taught at the school are not taught at U.S. universities. Attendance at this type of conference is a formative event in the preparation of the new generation of U.S. researchers in the field.
