The Clay Minerals Society annually awards several grants of up to $2500 through its student research grant program.
The research program is designed to provide partial financial support of masters and doctoral research for graduate students of clay science and technology.
Applications will be judged on a competitive basis. The qualifications of the applicant, the financial need of the research project, and the design of the research project are evaluated. Applicants selected will be nominated by a five-member CMS committee and approved by the CMS Council. There is no restriction with regard to nationality.
Each applicant must complete an Application for Research Grant form available in hardcopy from the CMS office or as a MSWord or PDF file. The applications include confidential evaluations from two faculty members (forms included).
Individual grants will not exceed $2500. Recipients of a CMS Student Research Grant automatically receive a one-year student membership in the society, to begin January of the year following receipt of the grant. Grant money may be used for the costs of travel by the grantee to conduct research, room and board associated with research-related field work, or for the costs of equipment, supplies, and analyses required to complete the research. Reimbursement from the grant (up to $500) for expenses incurred while presenting a paper at the CMS conference on the thesis research, is also allowed. Recipients can apply for grants in subsequent years; however, no individual may receive more than one renewal of a previously funded project, or more than two grants for separate projects in separate years.
The Clay Minerals Society offers a reduced student membership rate of $15.00 per year, entitling students to:
* a subscription to Clays and Clay Minerals, one of the leading journals in the field of clay science
* registration materials for the annual Clay Minerals Conference, including workshops and field trips
* information on awards for best student papers and posters given at the annual meeting
* access to the Source Clays Project, which provides homogeneous clay samples for research purposes
* discounts on selected books of interest to clay scientists
* updated information on the Society's latest publications, including the Workshop Lectures Series
* the lively quarterly newsletter, CMS News
Through its conferences and publications, The Clay Minerals Society offers students the best means of following the many-sided growth of the clay sciences and of meeting fellow scientists and technologists with widely different backgrounds and interests.