Abstracts are sought to address building science issues in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program, Microbiology of the Built Environment. The Sloan Foundation is sponsoring a symposium as an important part of the conference. The emphasis of the Sloan Symposium will be on the building science aspects of studies of the indoor microbiome — in other words, what are the important “metadata” and how and when should they be collected.
The Indoor Air 2014 conference will be held July 7-12, 2014 in Hong Kong. It is expected to attract approximately 1000 building scientists from all over the world. The Sloan Foundation Symposium will focus on building science perspectives on the characterization of the indoor microbiome.
Abstracts are due November 15th.Submit abstracts before the deadline, November 15th. Go to the web site http://www.indoorair2014.org/ and click on submission for more details. (The conference organizer is considering extending the deadline for one week to November 22nd due to the requests from some potential authors. This will be the absolute deadline.)
Here is a brief summary of the Sloan Symposium.
Project Goal
The Second International Sloan Symposium on Microbiology of the Built Environment will be held at Indoor Air 2014, July 7-12, 2014 at the University of Hong Kong. The project goal is to continue the Indoor Air 2011 Sloan’s symposium, and bring together some leading microbiologists and building technology researchers from North America and the rest of the world to develop and foster new interdisciplinary ideas and opportunities to better understand the dynamics and relationships between built environment variables/parameters and the microorganisms that exist in buildings and other man-made environments. The results will provide justifications and new opportunities to both Government and private funding bodies in different countries to inject research funding to the important research on microbiology in the man-made environments. The Symposium will also have a unique keynote program to help postgraduate students or early-career researchers prepare for their research in the field.
Objectives
Strategies: The symposium will be held on three of the five days at Indoor Air 2014, July 7-12, and where it is expected that 1000 participants from more than 50 countries will attend. Invited symposium participants will include experts and young researchers including postgraduate students in microbiology, and building science/technologies from US and the rest of the world Research questions: What are the new opportunities brought by modern detection methods, new molecular methods and new developments in peripheral disciplines to the understanding of man-made environments, urban environment, microbiology, and what are the emerging research questions and ideas? Indoor Air 2014 provides a unique platform for an in-depth discussion and scientific exchange.
Proposed Activities
The symposium will include three major activities: (1) Three oral technical sessions on Day 1 and 2 (July 10-11, 2014), which will provide opportunities to the international leading experts to share their latest findings, followed by scientific discussion. (2) A special keynote session with 4 invited speakers on Day 1 on bio-aerosols and particulate matters. (3) Two multidisciplinary Sloan workshop/forums on Day 3 (July 12, 2014) to discuss new research ideas, collaboration opportunities and emerging issues.
We anticipate an interesting, stimulating, and productive symposium.