Leadership Group Travel Program

For the past six years, the LG has provided Travel Awards to partially fund REU participant travel to the Spring National American Chemical Society Meeting. These awards have been funded in the past through NSF grants to the LG and are now being funded through NSF grants to Professor David Haines of Wellesley College. For the past several years, these Travel Awards have been extended to include participants in the Louis Stokes – Alliance for Minority Participation participants, as a mechanism for building connections and collaborations between these two undergraduate research programs.

In the most recent year, 2008, we funded 76 students, at the rate of $500 per student, and 36 traveling mentors, at the rate of $200, to attend the ACS meeting in New Orleans. The Awards reception, held on Sunday night of the reception, was attended by a total of 160 students, mentors, and NSF representatives. At this reception, the awardees were introduced to the ACS meeting by representatives of the Young Chemists Committee of the ACS, and well as by members of the LG and the representatives of the NSF. The awardees also established connections with other students and faculty that made their experience of the ACS meeting more collegial and more rewarding.

Professor Haines has applied for funds with which to continue this awards program, and will announce the LG Travel Awards program for the March, 2009 ACS Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, as soon as the funding is approved by NSF.

For additional information, contact Professor Haines at dhaines@wellesley.edu.