Conference: Student Travel Supplement for 2026 International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM)

This award will provide travel supplements to US-based undergraduate and graduate students to attend the 2026 International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM 2026), held in San Antonio, TX from July 18-25, 2026. The conference will also offer a student workshop which will involve students learning and practicing various communication skills for both technical/non-technical audiences. ICOM traditionally has participants from academia, national labs, federal agencies and industries. This will provide the student attendees with networking and career development opportunities. Including undergraduate students in these opportunities will integrate them into the membranes community early in their training and career. This meeting will cover a broad range of membrane-related topics membrane materials, new manufacturing techniques, a wide range of membrane applications (water treatment, crude oil separation, gas separation, organic solvent separation and bioprocessing) and membrane modeling. The presentations will also include emerging separation areas such as rare earths and critical minerals recovery. The membrane community is focusing on several approaches to improve membrane properties, including new material discovery and design, new and sustainable membrane manufacturing processes and combination of artificial intelligence (AI) /machine learning (ML) and process modeling with experimental approaches. Presentations in this conference will also include “membrane adjacent” topics such as polymer synthesis, advanced manufacturing, and computational material development. 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.