Support for Attendance by Early Career Astronomers, Planetary Scientists, and Earth Scientists to the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society in July 2010

American Museum Natural History, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award is being co-sponsored by the Division of Earth Sciences (GEO Directorate) and the Division of Astronomical Sciences (MPS Directorate) to partially support the attendance of 15 early-career astronomers, planetary scientists and earth scientists to attend the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, July 26-30, 2010 in New York City. The Meteoritical Society is a non-profit, non-academic scholarly professional society founded (1933) and largely based in the US that is directly associated with educational and research activities. The Society publishes Meteoritics and Planetary Science. This meeting will bring together experts in diverse fields to discuss recent research findings as well as strategies for education on topics related to the origins of solar systems, and the formation and evolution of planets. This proposal will enhance the scientific richness of the Meteoritical Society annual meeting by extending participation to allied fields of earth and planetary sciences and astronomical sciences. Funding will facilitate the participation of early career U.S. investigators from allied sciences who might not otherwise attend. Crossover topics for the conference will include planetary disk modeling and observation, asteroid dynamics and composition, planetary astronomy, as well as planetary processes such as basaltic volcanism, core formation, planetary magnetic fields, and impact studies. Instrumentation and computational infrastructure are additional cross-disciplinary topics. These topics are all close to the intellectual heart of both the Astronomical Sciences (particularly planetary and stellar astronomy) and Earth Sciences programs at NSF. Educationally synergistic activities in the New York area are under development with the American Museum of Natural History, a sponsoring institution for this conference