Conference: Royal Society of London Meeting on Molluscan Genomics to be held September 16-17, 2019 in Milton Keynes, UK

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will support attendance by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at the Royal Society of London Meeting on Molluscan Genomics, to be held September 16-17, 2019 at Chicheley Hall in Milton Keynes, UK. This meeting, entitled "Pearls of wisdom: Synergizing leadership and expertise in molluscan genomics", is organized as one of the Royal Society's Theo Murphy meetings and is designed to bring together scientists from around the world to present and discuss new research on diverse topics that promise to reveal important links between genomics and the biology of mollusks. The format of the meeting is a combination of talks and posters, which will promote scientific exchange in both formal and informal settings. Early-career participants will benefit from engagement as speakers and discussion leaders in general sessions and as presenters in a special poster session featuring the work of junior scientists. The scientific focus of the meeting will be on four themes: diversity of molluscan life, technological advances in molluscan genomics, challenges in molluscan genome assembly, and advances, insights and problems addressable with molluscan genomics. These topics were chosen to catalyze new, significant advances in understanding the biology of mollusks, which have high importance from ecological, economic, and medical perspectives. Concerted efforts to include participants who are relatively young scientists in the field will help ensure that the conference meets one of its goals, e.g., to develop a new cadre of researchers prepared to move the science forward. The meeting will provide an excellent venue for graduate student and postdoctoral participants, including those from underrepresented groups, to share their latest results with researchers from the U.S. and abroad and to receive feedback on their work from experts in the field. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.