The first annual Portland American Chemical Society Undergraduate Poster Symposium will be held on Sunday, October 5, at the SRTC Building (formerly Science II) at Portland State University, from 4-7 PM.  We hope to have 50 or more undergraduates presenting posters about their summer research;  there will be free pizza and beer (and other food and drink).

I am writing to invite you to send grad students, postdocs, and faculty to display materials and/or pamphlets about your school at a table we will provide, and to interact with students who are interested in your graduate school.

We also need judges to determine who should receive $150 first prizes and possibly $75 second prizes in each of seven divisions.  To the extent you can identify specific people who would attend, it would be most helpful to know their names, email addresses, and the divisions they are willing to judge (Organic, Inorganic, Analytical, Physical, Biochemistry, Polymers, Materials); or ask them to contact me directly, reingold@juniata.edu.  This is all free of charge.  Thank you!

Cheers,
Dave Reingold

1.    Name: Paul Weatherford
2.    Area of study / position title: Biological lab sciences / Science Storekeeper
3.    Why chemistry? (What about it initially interested you, etc.)?  Uh, Chemistry is the wave of the future. Creating new, exciting ways to blow up the lab was always main goal of mine!
4.    Research focus (in non-science terms) or basic job duties? My basic job duties are customer service, purchasing/procurement, inventory management, receiving, problem solving and minion herding.
5.    One thing that you truly love about your job? I get to see the cutting edge of new technologies being created and help facilitate their progress into reality.
6.    One interesting/strange factoid about yourself. I am a fully certified PADI Divemaster and research diver with the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, OR.

The Graduate School is offering an intensive workshop to help OSU students prepare competitive applications for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award.  The workshop will be conducted in two sessions – Session 1 on Thursday, October 2, and Session 2 on Thursday, October 9. Both sessions will be from 5:00 to 7:00 pm – both sessions will be held in Kearney 212.

Session 1 will include a brief overview of the GRFP Program, a panel discussion with current OSU GRFP Fellows and faculty reviewers, and exercises to help students draft their Personal, Relevant Background and Future Goals Statements. Session 2 will include exercises to help students draft their Graduate Research Plan Statement.

The final NSF GRFP application deadlines for 2015-16 awards are from October 29, 2014 through November 4, 2014, depending upon the area of study.

For applicant eligibility, please see the complete eligibility requirements in Solicitation NSF-14-590 at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14590/nsf14590.htm.

Please forward this announcement to eligible students, and encourage them to attend – seating is limited, and registration is required:  Click here to register. Faculty and advisors may attend, although students will have priority. Deadline for registration is Tuesday, September 30, 2014.

If you have any questions, please send an email to the Graduate School at Graduate.Scholarships@oregonstate.edu.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) Fellowship Program provides U.S. graduate students in science and engineering with an opportunity to spend 8 weeks (10 weeks for Japan) during the summer conducting research at one of the seven host locations in East Asia and Pacific: Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. The program is a collaboration between NSF and counterpart agencies in each host location.

EAPSI is open to graduate students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and are enrolled in a research-oriented Masters or Ph.D. program in science or engineering. Applicants must propose a research project in a field of science, engineering or STEM education supported by NSF, including Engineering; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Mathematical and Physical Sciences (Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Materials Science); Biological Sciences; Geosciences; Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences; Education (STEM); and Multidisciplinary Research in these fields. Applicants identify and contact host researchers on their own, prior to submitting their EAPSI proposal; lists of prospective host institutions are available at the end of each Handbook.

NSF provides EAPSI Fellows with a $5,000 stipend and roundtrip airplane ticket to the host location. Our foreign counterparts provide in-country living expenses and accommodations (arrangements vary by host location). Please see www.nsf.gov/eapsi for additional information for the Program Solicitation (NSF 13-593); host location-specific Handbooks; How to Apply Guide; and Helpful Tips Applicants.

In 2015, approximately 215 EAPSI Fellows travel to seven locations in the East Asia and Pacific:
Australia – 30
China – 40
Japan – 65
Korea – 25
New Zealand – 15
Singapore – 15
Taiwan – 25

The application submission deadline for the Summer 2015 is November 13, 2014.

EAPSI Informational Webinars will be conducted on Tue, September 9 and Fri, October 17, 2014, at 2:00 pm ET. Log-in instructions will be available at www.nsf.gov/eapsi

We look forward to receiving applications from your graduate students!

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science is pleased to announce that the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is now accepting applications for the 2014 solicitation.  Applications are due 5:00pm ET on Wednesday September 24, 2014.

The SCGSR program supports supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to conduct part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE national laboratory in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist for a period of 3 to 12 consecutive months—with the goal of preparing graduate students for scientific and technical careers critically important to the DOE Office of Science mission.

The SCGSR program is open to current Ph.D. students in qualified graduate programs at accredited U.S. academic institutions, who are conducting their graduate thesis research in targeted areas of importance to the DOE Office of Science. The research opportunity is expected to advance the graduate students’ overall doctoral thesis while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the DOE laboratories. The supplemental award provides for additional, incremental costs for living and travel expenses directly associated with conducting the SCGSR research project at the DOE host laboratory during the award period.

The Office of Science expects to make approximately 100 awards in 2014, for project periods beginning anytime between January and September 2015.

Detailed information about the program, including eligibility requirements and access to the online application system, can be found at: http://science.energy.gov/wdts/scgsr/.

The SCGSR program is sponsored and managed by the DOE Office of Science’s Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS), in collaboration with the six Office of Science research programs offices and the DOE national laboratories, and the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE).

For any questions, please contact the SCGSR Program Manager, Dr. Ping Ge, at sc.scgsr@science.doe.gov.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science

OSU Libraries is funding two scholarships for OSU students to attend the OpenCon conference on Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data, and the Library very much welcome applications from grad students for the scholarships. More details on the conference are available through the links below.

This conference will be Nov. 15-17, 2014 in Washington, DC.

We think this will be of special interest to graduate students who would like to learn more about these issues and connect with peers.

Here is the online application form for students, which needs to be submitted by Sept. 26.

http://opencon2014.org/oregonstate

Here’s some general information about the conference:

http://opencon2014.org/program

If you have any questions, contact Shan Sutton.

The Graduate School is offering an intensive workshop to help OSU students prepare competitive applications for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award.  The workshop will be conducted in two sessions – Session 1 on Thursday, October 2, and Session 2 on Thursday, October 9. Both sessions will be from 5:00 to 7:00 pm – both sessions in Kearney 212.

Session 1 will include a brief overview of the GRFP Program, a panel discussion with current OSU GRFP Fellows and faculty reviewers, and exercises to help students draft their Personal, Relevant Background and Future Goals Statements. Session 2 will include exercises to help students draft their Graduate Research Plan Statement.

Doug Lownsbery, a current NSF-GRFP awardee, will be coordinating the panel and workshop activities.  If you are an NSF-GRFP Faculty Reviewer or have past experience with preparing these NSF-GRFP proposals and would be willing to assist with this workshop, please let us know by sending an email to graduate.scholarships@oregonstate.edu, no later than 9/8/2014.  

A formal announcement about the workshop will be sent next week to Graduate Program Advisors/Directors and graduate faculty, requesting them to encourage student attendance.