Participant Support for 2024 American Control Conference (ACC); Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 8-12 July 2024

The American Control Conference (ACC) is a highly regarded international conference that brings together the international controls community to discuss the latest advancements in systems and controls across various application area while offering attendees educational and networking opportunities. ACC also provides a unique chance for students and researchers to interact with industry professionals and national lab researchers in a stimulating environment, allowing them to exchange ideas and learn from a broad group of colleagues. The conference provides a range of workshops before the event, making it an excellent opportunity for additional training, learning, and networking. Unfortunately, financial constraints have traditionally limited the participation of disadvantaged students from underrepresented groups in engineering, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, veterans, and first-generation students. Therefore, this award will provide travel support to enable the involvement of those students who are typically unable to attend professional conferences. The travel support program also targets students from non-R1 institutions. These accessibility efforts are expected to promote inclusion in these networking and professional development opportunities. The systems theoretic approach has played a vital role in developing many technologies that impact everyday life, including power, traffic, manufacturing, energy, environment, health, biotechnology, and pharmaceutics. The annual American Control Conference covers a broad range of topics, reflecting the varied applications of systems and control theory. The 2024 conference will comprise regular and invited sessions, tutorial sessions, poster sessions, special sessions, and workshops and exhibits, providing an exceptional opportunity for students, researchers, and industrial professionals to discuss emerging technologies and applications. 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.