PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award

The PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award is given to help foster communication among the graduate student community and to partially support graduate students to attend ACS National Meetings.

Award Details

Purpose

The Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) Division presents the PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award to provide partial travel support to graduate students and present the research at ACS National Meetings.

Rules of Eligibility

PMSE members who are graduate students performing research in fields related to polymer science and engineering are encouraged to apply. Applicants must be a full-time graduate student at a U.S. educational institution at the time of application, and must be the presenting author of a submitted abstract under consideration to a PMSE symposium at the ACS National Meeting. The awardee MUST be a member of the PMSE Division. Individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM are highly encouraged to apply. Note that the first year of Division membership is free, and subsequent years are $1 for students.  If you are not a member, you can join by visiting the website: https://pmsedivision.org/join/

Applicants must submit the required application materials through the designated PMSE application form by the stated deadline and applications are evaluated only on the basis of the materials submitted through the application process. Abstracts presented in another division will not be considered, and the awardee MUST be presenting their work as a poster or oral presentation during a PMSE symposium.

Nomination Process

Eligible students are required to submit an online application.

In preparation for submission, the online form will request the following information:
• Nominee Contact Information
• Advisor Information
• Graduate Date
• Abstract Information

Eligible students are required to submit an online application. The Fall 2026 application (due June 12, 2026) is found at:

https://forms.gle/hQ6aYeskoCaNNSgZ9

For ACS Spring meetings, please check back in January and February for updated application and deadline dates. For ACS Fall meetings, please check back in June and July for an updated application and deadline dates.  Dates vary based on the timing for the conference.

Award Selection

Applications will be reviewed by the PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award committee.

Award Announcement and Nature

Selection will be made prior to the conference via email. Awardees will be notified by the PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award committee.

Each awardee will receive a $500 award to be applied to costs of her/his travel to the meeting. Awardees will be acknowledged at the PMSE/POLY Awards Ceremony at the National ACS Meeting.

If you have any questions, please email the PMSE Graduate Student Travel Award Committee Chairs, Benjamin Paren (bparen@stevens.edu) or Cécile Chazot  (cchazot@northwestern.edu).

Full List of Award Winners

Year	Meeting	Winner	University	Presentation Title
2025	Spring	Sierra Yost	The Pennsylvania State University	Physical aging in additively manufactured PETG
2025	Spring	Meng Jiang	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	Employing dynamic covalent chemistry for recyclable and adaptable electronic materials
2025	Spring	Natalie Mamrol	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Screening of biobased furanoate polyesters for sustaining fibers
2024	Fall	Kacie Wells	North Carolina State University	Thermoplastic elastomers with inherent antimicrobial properties for reduction in the spread of harmful microbes
2024	Fall	Nan (Louise) Chen	Johns Hopkins University	Enhancing electrical conductivity and power factor in poly-glycol-bithienylthienothiophene with oligoethylene glycol side chains through tris(pentafluorophenyl) borane doping
2023	Fall	Elizabeth Murphy	University of California, Santa Barbara	Accelerated Discovery of Block Copolymers through Automated Chromatography
2023	Fall	Atalaya Wilborn	Harvard University	Dynamic Gaussian Shape Morphs via Magnetically Aligned Liquid Crystal Elastomer Films
2023	Fall	Hannah Dedmon	North Carolina State University	Antiplasticizing Interaction between Aldaric Acid Isomers and Polyacrylonitrile for Improved Gel Spinning
2023	Spring	Erin Crater	Virginia Tech	Quantitative Analysis of Liquid Metal-Polymer Composite Morphology via X-ray Scattering
2023	Spring	Jackie Zhu	Virginia Tech	Enhancing enzyme-triggered H2S-induced Cytotoxicity in Glioma via a Supramolecular Peptide-iron Mate3rials
2022	Fall	Sofia Goodrich	University of Florida	Imine Core-crosslinked Stars for Tunable Degradation and Release
2022	Fall	McKenna Hanson	University of Minnesota	Understanding the Effects of Cationic Type and Architecture of Antisense Oligonucleotide Delivery
2022	Fall	Julie Rieland	University of Michigan	Sticky Situation:  Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Applied in the Capture of Aqueous Microplastics
2022	Fall	Thivani Senathiraja	Iowa State University	Creating Multiblock Ionomer Structures via Salt Complexation in Solvent Systems
2022	Spring	Amalie Atassi	Georgia Institute of Technology	Thermal conductivity is independent of topochemical polymerization in organic materials
2022	Spring	Rachel Detwiler	University of Utah	Development in transition metal catalyzed N-carboxyanhydride polymerization: Preparation of polyproline materials
2022	Spring	Kristin Lewis	Univ of Colorado, Boulder	Subcritical Phase Transitions in Supramolecular Liquid Crystalline Elastomers
2022	Spring	Ani Nazari	Arizona State University	Hydrophobic Polymers with Various Ion Exchange Capacities for Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide
2019	Fall	Abigail Delawder	Washington University of Saint Louis	Synthesis, self-assembly, and photomechanical gel actuator performance of a sequence-defined polyviologen crosslinker
2019	Fall	Stephanie Aguilar	UCLA	Electrostatically varied grafted copolymers for enhancing multivalent ion rejection for nanofiltration
2019	Spring	Bonnie Buss	Colorado State University	Organocatalyzed atom transfer radical polymerization in continuous photo-flow reactors
2019	Spring	Meghan Lamm	University of South Carolina	Plant oil-derived emulsion polymers with post-polymerization induced mechanical enhancement
2018	Fall	Julia Pribyl	University of South Carolina	Poly(4-vinylpyridine) grafted polyHIPE foams for high performance plutonium separations
2018	Fall	Samuel Leguizamon	University of Michigan	Selective, information-directed dynamic covalent assembly of sequence-specific peptoids
2018	Spring	Symone Cook-Alexander	Case Western Reserve University	Molecular gel composites: From solution to solid-state reversibility
2018	Spring	Jennifer Imbrogno	University of Texas at Austin	Structure-kinetic relationships for mono(μ-oxo)-dialuminum initiators for epoxide polymerization