Support of a Hybrid Format 2022 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Meeting To Expand Access And Diversity

This award will provide support for the audiovisual infrastructure required to host a hybrid, virtual and onsite, 2022 Meeting of the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) in Tempe, Arizona. NAMS is a premier membrane conference, providing outstanding technical sessions across the full breadth of topics within membrane science and technology. The theme of the 2022 meeting is "Membranes for Sustainability," where technical sessions will focus on communicating the latest developments and trends in membrane science geared towards improving sustainability.

The meeting has a rich history as a forum for students, early-career researchers, and leaders in the field, from both industry and academia, to share their research and development outcomes, insights, and future directions. The hybrid meeting format allows attendees to decide how they wish to participate. Providing a virtual attendance option has been shown to reduce barriers to participation, such as the burden and cost of travel, and is expected to improve overall attendance and make the meeting globally accessible.

This support for the hybrid meeting audiovisual infrastructure will ensure a positive, productive meeting experience for all attendees and promotes participation by diverse members of the membranes research community. The format also provides flexibility should pandemic-related travel restrictions arise.

The NAMS organizing committee is comprised of diverse North American researchers, and invited speakers from academia, industry, and government labs feature prominently in the program. The meeting will feature 30 technical sessions, daily plenary sessions, a poster session, and abundant unstructured discussion periods to catalyze new collaborative relationships and research ideas.

All oral presentations by onsite and online speakers will be given through a live Zoom teleconference, with two-way communication and online session chairs to moderate discussions. Mentorship breakouts, sponsor sessions, and plenary talks will also be live through Zoom, such that all attendees are participating in real-time. The 2022 NAMS meeting will cover a variety of topics ranging from fundamental studies of membrane material science to process systems development and applications of membrane technology in water, bioprocessing, chemical separations, environmental systems, and energy.

Historically, more than 400 leading membranologists from around the world participate in the NAMS meeting each year. This award will extend opportunities to meaningfully participate in the meeting to researchers who might, otherwise, be unable to attend in person. The effectiveness of the hybrid meeting format will be assessed through surveys and quantitative comparison with attendance profiles from prior meetings, and the findings will be disseminated through the society's website and a peer-reviewed publication.

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.