Deadline for applications: deadline for 2026 Fall ACS National Meeting will be announced soon…
The POLY Graduate Student Travel Award was established to provide funding for graduate students studying polymer science at US institutions to travel to national ACS meetings and present their results (poster or oral presentation). These awards are generously supported by the POLY Industrial Advisory Board and are administered by the membership committee of the ACS POLY Division.
Award: Awardees will receive $750 award to be applied to costs associated with registration, travel, and accommodations at the national ACS meeting at which they are presenting. One $750 award will be based on merit, and a second $750 award will be based on an applicant making his/her first presentation, with financial need also taken into consideration. Recipients are recognized at the POLY/PMSE awards symposium at the national ACS meeting. The award may be applied for registration, travel, and accommodations, and is restricted to the next ACS National Meeting.
Eligibility: A nominee must be a member of the national ACS and the POLY division of ACS, and must currently be pursuing a PhD at a U.S. institution. Only one award per cycle will be given to a specific institution. The student must be presenting at a POLY-sponsored (or co-sponsored) symposium.
Application: Applicants must be a member of the POLY division of ACS. Incomplete applications or applications submitted as a zip file will not be considered. Applications should be submitted as a single PDF file to Alan Hopkins, PhD, at alan.r.hopkins@aero.org. The single PDF application file should be named as “Last name_school_document.pdf” and should include (in order):
- Resume: Please include your permanent address, contact cell phone number, and your GPA. Include and highlight all First Author publications (referred) and list other secondary publications as co-author. Maximum 2 pages.
- Cover letter (500-word max), including
- Scientific and financial reasons to warrant the award
- Future career plans in the area of polymer chemistry
- Whether or not the applicant has made a previous presentation at an ACS National Meeting (do not include regional or other technical meetings)
- Completed application form: download here
- Abstract on the research to be submitted to the national meeting (<500 words)
- Letter from applicant’s advisor (1 page max) confirming participation in the proposed meeting, comments on technical ability and potential in the field of polymer science, and listing any other travel support available from the department or research grants
How to send these documents:
- All documents must be sent electronically and saved in a PDF format. Documents that require signatures must be scanned and saved as a PDF. No hard copies accepted.
- Label all files as: Last name_school_document.pdf (For example: Hopkins_UM_application.pdf)
- NO zip files in the e-mail will be accepted.
- All documents must be received before the deadline in order to be considered for the award. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
- Please attach all files in one email.
Where to send the application:
- Please e-mail ALL documents to the attention of Alan R. Hopkins, Ph.D. member, membership division, Division of Polymer Chemistry
- E-mail address: alan.r.hopkins@aero.org
Final notes: Through this award program, the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry hopes to increase the participation of younger scientists in the field of polymer chemistry.
Previous Awardees
| 2025 (Fall) | Windfield Swetman (University of Southern Mississippi) |
| 2025 (Fall) | Brock hunter (University of Delaware) |
| 2025 (Spring) | Bohdan Domnich (North Dakota State University) |
| 2025 (Spring) | Muhammad Arslan (University of Houston) |
| 2024 (Fall) | Daniel Inman (University of Alabama at Birmingham) |
| 2024 (Fall) | Isabel Coutinho (Virginia Tech) |
| 2024 (Spring) | Lynne Stevens (UT Austin) |
| 2024 (Spring) | William W. Johnson (Mississippi State) |
| 2023 (Fall) | Kriti Kapil (Carnegie Mellon) |
| 2023 (Fall) | Julio E. Terán (North Carolina State University) |
| 2023 (Spring) | Autumn Mineo (UMass Amherst) |
| 2023 (Spring) | Zepeng Lei (CU Boulder) |
| 2022 (Fall) | Dhananjay Dileep (Iowa State U.) |
| 2022 (Fall) | Brianna Coia (Florida State U.) |
| 2022 (Spring) | Yu Zheng (Stanford U.) |
| 2022 (Spring) | Shuang Liang (Georgia Tech.) |
| 2021 (Fall) | Yiming Hu (U. Colorado) |
| 2021 (Fall) | Richard Ly (U. South Carolina) |
| 2021 (Fall) | Xiaoqian Wang (Virginia Tech) |
| 2021 (Fall) | Meng Zhang (Louisiana State U.) |
| 2020 (Fall) | Abhishek Dhyani (U. Michigan) |
| 2020 (Fall) | Georg Scheutz (U. Florida) |
| 2020 (Spring) | Laura Murdock (U. South Carolina) |
| 2020 (Spring) | Will Henderson (U. Florida) |
| 2019 (Fall) | Zachary Clauss (U. Utah) |
| 2019 (Fall) | David Mackanic (Stanford) |
| 2019 (Spring) | Blaine McCarthy (Colorado State) |
| 2019 (Spring) | Kali Miller (UIUC) |
| 2018 (Fall) | Sahar Qavi (New Mexico State) |
| 2018 (Fall) | Jiazhen Chen (Northwestern) |
| 2018 (Spring) | Hamed Vahabi (Colorado State) |
| 2018 (Spring) | Louis (Chip) Reisman III (U. Alabama) |
| 2017 (Fall) | Jacob Lockhard (Vanderbilt) |
| 2017 (Fall) | Charles (Adrian) Figg (U. Florida) |
| 2017 (Spring) | Wanxing Xu (Colorado School of Mines) |
| 2017 (Spring) | Dibyendu Debnath (U. Akron) |
| 2016 (Fall) | Joey Kim (CalTech) |
| 2016 (Fall) | Azadeh Farhanchi (UMass Lowell) |
| 2016 (Spring) | Jeff Lopez (Stanford) |
| 2016 (Spring) | Baraka Lwoya (Tulane) |
| 2015 (Fall) | Olivia Durham (Clarkson |
| 2015 (Fall) | Keren Zhang (Virginia Tech) |
| 2015 (Spring) | Jihyeon Yeom (U. Michigan) |
| 2015 (Spring) | Xiangtao Meng (Virginia Tech) |
| 2014 (Fall) | Benjamin Peter Cheriawski (UMass Amherst) |
| 2014 (Fall) | Taeshik Earmme (U. Washington) |
| 2014 (Spring) | Sebla Onbulak (SUNY Buffalo) |
| 2014 (Spring) | Zachary Kean (Duke) |
| 2013 (Fall) | Abhay Sham Joijode (NC State) |
| 2013 (Fall) | Bin Tan (UMass Lowell) |
| 2013 (Spring) | Wei-Fan Kuan (UDel) |
| 2013 (Spring) | Mallory Hammock (Stanford) |
| 2012 (Fall) | Babloo Sharma (UT Dallas) |
| 2012 (Fall) | Zhuo Chen (U. Florida) |
| 2012 (Spring) | Ryan Weber (UW Madison) |
| 2012 (Spring) | Xiojun Wang (UT Knoxville) |
| 2011 (Fall) | Jia Wei (Univ. Maryland) |
| 2011 (Fall) | Abhijit Paul (Oklahoma State) |
| 2011 (Spring) | Januka Budhathoki-Uprety (NC State) |
| 2011 (Spring) | Elizabeth G. Kelly (UDel) |
| 2011 (Fall) | Huaxing Zhou (UNC) |
| 2011 (Fall) | Corinne Lipscomb (UW Madison) |
| 2010 (Spring) | Srijanani Bhaskar (Univ. Michigan) |
| 2010 (Spring) | Feng Liu (UMass Amherst) |
| 2009 (Fall) | UYan Xia (CalTech) |
| 2009 (Fall) | Thomas Stratton(Purdue) |
| 2009 (Fall) | Nancy Zhang (Virginia Tech) |
| 2009 (Spring) | Ken Graham (Univ. Florida) |
| 2009 (Spring) | Margaret Sobkowicz (Colorado School of Mines) |
| 2009 (Spring) | Guoging Zhang (Univ. Virginia) |
| 2008 (Spring) | Brian Long (UT Austin) |
| 2008 (Spring) | Joseph Lott (Case Western) |
| 2007 (Fall) | Diana Smirnova (CalTech) |
| 2007 (Fall) | Camilia Garces (Univ. Akron) |
| 2007 (Spring) | Sharlene Williams (Virginia Tech) |
| 2007 (Spring) | M. Brett Runge (Univ. Iowa) |
| 2006 (Fall) | Debby Chang (Duke) |
| 2006 (Fall) | Yali Li (WashU, Saint. Louis) |
| 2006 (Spring) | Marcus Hung (NC State) |
| 2006 (Spring) | Manual Ocampo (Univ. Akron) |
| 2005 (Fall) | Robert Lupitsky (Clarkson Univ.) |
| 2005 (Fall) | Jihua Chen (Univ. Michigan) |
| 2005 (Fall) | Huiming Mao (Univ. Minnesota) |
For more information about previous awardees: