News Archive Item
Symposium on Indoor Air Quality and Cook Stoves in Developing Countries: Apply for a scholarship!
Description:
Apply for a scholarship!
Indoor Air 2011 will be held June 5-10, 2011, in Austin, Texas, and is expected to draw over 1,200 attendees from up to 50 countries. The conference will include a student-run symposium on indoor air quality, energy efficiency, cook stoves, and how to work effectively in developing countries. Scholarships ($1,000 reimbursements) are available for interested students to attend the symposium. Students will be able to participate in round-table discussions and design workshops shaped by their own questions, motivations, and literature and research findings directly or indirectly related to this field.
Applications for the symposium on indoor air quality and cook stoves in developing countries may be submitted to Brent Stephens (stephens.brent@mail.utexas.edu). Please include “IA2011 Student Symposium Application” as the subject line in the email.
Your application should include the following information in the format shown:
Name:
University:
Degree program (degree sought, department):
Name of NSF IGERT program (if an IGERT trainee or affiliate):
Personal Statement: In 400 words or less, please indicate why you are motivated to attend a symposium on indoor air quality and cook stoves in developing countries.
CV: Attached as a separate word or PDF document.
Due to requirements established by our funding source, scholarship recipients must be U.S. citizens and must be traveling only within the United States. Scholarship winners will receive up to $1000 reimbursements to cover domestic travel, lodging, and conference registration. Conference registration is currently $425, and will increase to $500 on June 5th, 2011. We will promptly notify the winners so they can register as soon as possible. We are also offering inexpensive student housing in dorms on campus.
Additional information about the symposium (www.indoorair2011.org):
This symposium will address improvements in, and implementation of, cook stove technologies in the developing world. Inefficient cook stoves are directly or indirectly responsible for several health, environmental, and social issues that disproportionately and adversely affect women and young children around the world. Indoor air pollution in households that burn solid fuel (coal, biomass, animal dung) is responsible for an estimated 1.6 million premature deaths each year, representing up to 4% of the global burden of disease. In addition to impacts on indoor air quality, carbon dioxide and carbon black emissions from cook stoves are also important contributors to global climate change. Cook stoves are also part of a complex web of suffering in refugee camps. For example, amongst 2.2 million refugees in Darfur, the majority cook on very inefficient stoves that require substantial foraging for biomass fuels. It is during foraging that many people, mostly women and young girls, are brutally attacked by militia and rebels. Improved cook stove technologies could reduce the extent of foraging activities and indirectly the amount of attacks on these refugees. Furthermore, improvements in cookstove technologies will provide more time to hundreds of millions of women who could thus engage in other social and economic activities that improve their own lives as well as the lives of their families and communities.
This symposium will bring together recognized experts and students from a broad range of scientific disciplines working on, or interested in, improved cook stove technology and implementation. Importantly, the problems of cookstove usage and the effects in developing countries are often not unique to the technology itself. We expect our panel discussions and workshops to extend beyond cookstove technology and address fundamental questions about how to work with underserved communities to tackle needs they may have that require interdisciplinary solutions. This symposium will deal with fundamental technical issues related to combustion of various types of fuels in cook stoves, pollutant generation and transport, inhalation exposure, effects of ventilation, and (importantly) the social, political, and economic obstacles to effectively implement improved cook stoves in developing countries.
Don’t pass up a great opportunity to learn about and contribute to this important area of research as it develops – apply for a scholarship today!
