Purpose of the Fund
The Michael Mishkind Travel Fund provides IS-MPMI Members with travel awards for early career investigators to attend the IS-MPMI Congress, with an emphasis of enabling historically minoritized scientists to attend.
Eligibility and Selection
Membership in IS-MPMI is required. Eligible members include Post-Docs and early career members*
*early career is defined as individuals who have received a Ph.D. no more than 5 years prior to application and are working professionally in molecular plant-microbe interaction research.
Review and selection of recipients is based on the quality of the applicant's science reflected in the research abstract, impact statement, and curriculum vita.
Preference will be given to scientists from historically minoritized backgrounds.
How to Apply
The application process is incorporated into the online 2025 IS-MPMI Congress abstract submission process. Simply indicate when submitting your abstract that you want to apply for a travel award and the required travel funding application details will be provided in your submission for completion.
Application Materials
Research Abstract
Impact Statement (max 800 words) that indicates how your attendance at the IS-MPMI Congress will both benefit the program and your career goals. (It's recommended that you prepare your impact statement outside of the abstract submission system and simply cut and paste your response into the application portal when prompted).
Current curriculum vita
About the Fund
The Mishkind Travel Fund is named in honor of Dr. Michael Mishkind
Dr.
Michael Mishkind was well known to the IS-MPMI community as a program director at the United States National Science Foundation (NSF). He was also a professor at Bennington College in Vermont and performed research on heat stress tolerance in Chlamydomonas and Arabidopsis. Michael was a strong advocate within NSF for supporting research in the broad field of MPMI and was passionate in his support of interdisciplinary research and in broadening participation in plant sciences. He was co-founder of the
NSF Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and, most recently, he advocated for and successfully implemented a joint program with the USDA
National Institute of Food and Agriculture that was named the
Plant Biotic Interactions (PBI) program, which provided a mechanism for funding projects across the entire spectrum of foundational to translational research in MPMI, helping to support projects that had previously fallen into the gap between those extremes. He also strongly supported our IS-MPMI congresses by funding ~15 travel awards for early career investigators to attend each meeting, with an emphasis of enabling historically minoritized scientists to attend. He was committed to attending our IS-MPMI congresses over the last two decades and met with countless researchers from the USA at those meetings to provide counsel on strengthening research proposals and generally to learn about our research successes, and to keep abreast of the future directions and opportunities generated by our international society. In addition to Michael’s scientific impacts, he was also a dedicated mentor to multiple IS-MPMI members while they served stints as “Rotating” NSF program officers, which are positions held by active researchers that maintain their research programs at their home universities while working full-time at NSF to fund foundational research in the plant sciences. The MPMI field, especially within the USA, benefitted greatly from Michael’s tireless support. Michael is also fondly remembered for his kind and gentle character. This travel award honors Michael’s memory and is funded by private donations.
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