Travel Grant for Sixth Mediterranean Chemical Engineering Conference in Belek, Antalya, Turkey (March 7-12, 2010)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

1012114 Cramer Group Travel Grant for Sixth Mediterranean Chemical Engineering Conference (EMCC-6) to be held on March 7-12, 2010 in Belek, Antalya, Turkey. No peer review needed in accordance with NSF (PAM, V.B2.m) requesting awards for conferences, symposia, and workshops. This project provides for travel funds for U.S. academic representatives to attend the 6th Chemical Engineering Conference for Collaborative Research in Eastern Mediterranean (EMCC-6) to be held on March 7-12, 2010 at the Atlantis Hotel, Belek, Antalya, Turkey. The participating countries are Turkey, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Italy, Bulgaria, Rumania and the United States. Academic chemical engineers from other Eastern Mediterranean countries will also be invited. Intellectual Merit: The purpose of the Workshop is to update researchers from the participating countries with the new and potentially transformative research in five areas in chemical engineering: Challenges in water treatment/chemical engineering aspects of water stress; future energy engineering; process intensification; nano and hybrid materials and biological engineering. In addition, there will be post-dinner workshops on sustainable energy future energy engineering and chemical engineering for a clean environment. These areas were selected since they are critical technology areas in all of the participating countries. This is the sixth conference of a series. The five previous successful conferences were at the Technion, in Haifa, Israel in March 1999 with representatives from Turkey, Israel and the U.S.; in Ankara (Middle Eastern Technical University) in May, 2001 with participation by chemical engineers from Greece as well as the other three countries; in Thessaloniki, Greece in May 2003 with participation by the four participating countries; at the Dead Sea, Israel in January 2006 with participation from Italy, Romania and Bulgaria as well as the other four countries and at Cetraro Italy, 2008 with participation from all seven countries. Prof. Yuda Yurum from Sabanci University (TURKEY) will be the Chair of the Conference. The US EMCC coordinating committee, consisting of Steve Cramer (Rensselaer), Nick Abbott (Wisconsin) and Alex Katz (Berkeley), is organizing a first class group of approximately 25 U.S. presenters who will be invited from the five research areas. This will include a blend of senior researchers and promising young investigators. Distinguished invited presenters from the other countries have committed to participate and approximately 20 investigators from each country will be invited to give oral or poster presentations. Poster presentations by graduate students will also be included in the program. Special travel supplements will also be provided to five US participants to visit and lecture in Turkey and the other countries (Israel, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria or Rumania) to develop and/or promote collaborations. Broader Impact: It is expected based on past conference results that there will be a significant and broad impact on the US engineers attending the next EMCC conference. The first three EMCC Conferences have had major impacts in acquainting US, Turkish, Israeli, and Greek academics with their research interests and capabilities and in fostering research collaborations. The fourth and fifth conferences provided further opportunities, by expanding the conference to include Italy, Bulgaria and Rumania. An added benefit of these conferences is the exposure they have provided for large numbers of graduate students from the Eastern Mediterranean to interact directly with both seasoned and young faculty researchers from the U.S. and the other countries. In addition, these conferences have provided excellent forums for fruitful discussions on curriculum issues among faculty of the participating countries. In addition to the personal contacts that the U.S. participants will make with people from the other countries, it will be beneficial to U.S. interests to foster exchanges of research and teaching ideas and of personnel, and establish research collaborations between chemical engineers from the U.S. and chemical engineers from the Eastern Mediterranean countries. It is also likely that recruitment of potential graduate students may occur informally, as in the past. Finally, it is also the intention of the conference series to have significant industrial/societal impacts on the participating countries through the extensive scientific and personal exchanges that occur in this multicountry Gordon style conference.