NSF Award
2325976
RECOMB is an international scientific conference bridging the computational, mathematical, and biological sciences. The RECOMB conference series was founded in 1997 to provide a scientific forum for theoretical advances in computational biology and their applications in molecular biology and medicine. RECOMB 2023 will be the 27th Annual Meeting, held in Istanbul, Turkey. RECOMB features keynote talks by preeminent scientists, together with presentations of refereed research papers in computational biology, special sessions, and poster sessions. This project requests travel support for student conference participants from any US university, with priority going to graduate students who will be presenting paper or posters. Overall, students will be educated on cutting-edge developments that will further drive the research methods and results of the field of computational biology. Students and scientists will return to their labs to apply what they have learned as they advance their own research efforts or begin investigating new areas, they were exposed to because of attending RECOMB. NSF investment in this project will help further students’ careers and our nation’s competitiveness in an expanding, global industry, and will benefit the public through new discoveries made by highly trained scientists. <br/><br/>The meeting and proposed travel fellowships will have value for educational purposes, creating a unique training opportunity for 10 U.S.-based students of computational biology. Awarded travel fellowships will cover registration, hotel, and travel costs for a selected group of student presenters. Preference will be given to students with proceedings papers that are accepted for oral presentation at the conference and secondarily to those making poster presentations of accepted abstracts. Selection will be made by the conference chairs based on letters of application submitted via the conference website and reviewers’ evaluations of the work to be presented. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities will be especially encouraged to apply with the goal of achieving diversity at the meeting and directly benefitting diverse groups. As much as possible, participant support cost requested in this grant will be used specifically to fund the travel expenses of students from these three underrepresented groups to increase their access to training opportunities. By attending the RECOMB meeting, students will gain the latest skills in computational biology, the field that has the potential to unlock the secrets for understanding life. The field comprises a vibrant, growing industry, with skilled computational scientists in high demand at pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental, consumer products, biotech, software, hardware, and service companies. Students’ participation is vital for the growth and continuation of the field.<br/><br/>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.
