This award will support travel for young scientists and students to attend an international conference on penguin biology. This meeting will bring together investigators from 15 countries, and it is the primary international conference for scientists focusing on penguin research. The recipients of these travel funds will be graduate students and junior, less established scientists, and their participation in the meeting will expose them to research on Antarctic penguins, which they might otherwise not encounter at a typical wildlife biology meeting. The scientists who study Antarctic penguins typically come from non-academic institutions with little opportunity to take on students. Therefore, this award will help ensure that future generations of U.S. scientists gain professional experience with Antarctic species early in their careers, and will encourage them to participate and collaborate in Antarctic research in the future.
