Purpose: The Spackman Award, formerly known as the TSOP Student Grants Program, supports graduate thesis research in organic petrology. Research must demonstrate the utility and significance of organic petrology (which includes coal petrology, kerogen petrology, organic geochemistry and related disciplines) in solving the thesis problem.
Eligibility: The Spackman Award supports qualified graduate students from around the world who are actively seeking advanced degrees.
Awards: A maximum of two monetary awards, up to U.S. $1,000.00 each, will be granted. TSOP will also provide merit awards, in the form of Society publications, to selected top-ranking applicants who do not receive a monetary award. Applicants may re-apply annually, but can receive a maximum monetary award of $1,000.00 per thesis project. Award announcements will be made in September, 2009.
All applicants are eligible to apply for one year of TSOP Student membership at no cost.
Conditions: Monetary awards are to be applied to expenses directly related to the student's thesis work, such as field expenses, laboratory analyses, etc. A portion (not to exceed 25%) of the award funds may be used to attend a TSOP Annual Meeting. Funds should not be used to purchase capital equipment, to pay salaries, tuition, room, or board during the school year. Funds must be spent within 18 months of receipt of the award. The submitted abstracts from the successful proposals will be published in the TSOP Newsletter. At the conclusion of the research project, awardees are required to publish an extended summary of their work in the TSOP Newsletter and will be encouraged to present their results at the TSOP Annual Meeting. The submitted abstracts from the successful proposals will be published in the TSOP Newsletter.
Funds must be spent by the end of the calendar year following granting of the award, and an account of expenditure with copies of receipts should be provided by December 31 of that year. At the conclusion of the research project, awardees are required to publish an extended summary of their work in the TSOP Newsletter. They will also be encouraged to present their results at a TSOP Annual Meeting.
Application Deadline: Completed applications must be postmarked by May 15,
2009. Mail your completed application packet to:
Prof Colin Ward
Chair, TSOP Research Committee
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, 2052
Australia
Fax: + 61 2 9385 1558
E-mail: c.ward@unsw.edu.au
Review and Ranking of Applications: A committee of three TSOP members (and/or external experts when needed) will review the pool of applications. The reviewers will be drawn from people who have no association with the host institution of any applicant. Each reviewer will independently rank each proposal according to established merit criteria, using the Application Evaluation Form included in the application packet. The cumulative score from all three reviewers will be used to determine the final ranking of the applications. Winners will be notified prior to the 2009 Annual Meeting, and all applicants will be informed by e-mail of the final status of their applications.
*originally patterned after the 1998 AAPG Grants In Aid Program
Download and print the
Application Package (45kb Portable Document Format
file,
TSOP2009_grant.pdf, includes complete description, instructions, form, and evaluation criteria.)
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Applications are due by May 15, 2009.
Last modified 7 April 2009