Conference: 2023 Princeton Summer School on Combustion and the Environment

The purpose of this award is to provide some support for the annual Princeton Summer School on Combustion, held at Princeton University. The summer school offers one- week, intense, advanced graduate-level foundational courses in combustion theory, combustion chemistry, experiment, computation, and various technological issues related to propulsion, energy, fuels, and the environment.

It aims to empower the participants with a comprehensive, interdisciplinary knowledge base needed to make transformative discoveries in combustion energy science. The academic program typically consists of four to five 15-hour courses delivered over a five-day period. Since its 2010 inaugural session, over 2000 participants have attended, with lectures delivered by world-renowned experts in combustion with concurrent reputations as being inspiring lecturers.

All lectures are videotaped and freely available to the public via YouTube. The proposed program for the 2023 session will be held on June 25 to 30, with an expanded scope on the environment as reflected by re-naming the program as the Princeton Summer School on Combustion and the Environment.

A major goal of the Princeton Summer School is to advance the science and technology of combustion. The Summer School is an effective vehicle to combine the fairly disparate branches of combustion theory, chemistry, experiment, computation, and applications. Students and researchers are asked to dig deep into the fundamental concepts of combustion science while given the opportunity to network with other researchers in the field.

The Summer School plays a significant role in preparing the next generation of scientists and technologists in this field to address the immensely challenging problems of energy sustainability and climate change. The concept and structure of this summer school also offers a model for adoption by other interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary programs for talent development in the broad arena of science and technology research.

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.