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The biennial North American Catalysis Society (NACS) Meetings are the premiere conferences in the area of catalysis, surface science, and reaction engineering. The 22nd meeting will be held the week of June 5-10, 2011 in Detroit, Michigan. The objective of the Meetings is to bring together leading researchers for intensive scientific exchange and interactions. Financial support that offsets some of the associated costs (specifically, registration fee, airline tickets, and hotel accommodations) would encourage graduate students, and for the first time undergraduate students, to attend and participate meaningfully in this conference. The funds sought in this proposal will help support the Richard J. Kokes Travel Award program. Graduate students eligible for these merit-based Awards are those who study at a North American university and who will present at the Meeting. We have currently 209 applications and we expect to be able to fund about half of them. The NACS has traditionally sought to encourage graduate student, and this year for the first time undergraduate studies, participation at the National Meetings and providing financial support is the most effective means to do so. Their attendance would contribute significantly to their scientific training and communication and presentation skills. They would be exposed to …

The authors discuss the study of matter at very high energy density. In particular: what are the scientific questions; what are the opportunities to makes significant progress in the study of such matter and what facilities are now or might be available in the future to answer the scientific questions? The theoretical and experimental study of new forms of high energy density matter is still very much a 'wild west' field. There is much freedom for developing new concepts which can have order one effects on the way we think about such matter. It is also a largely 'lawless' field, in that concepts and methods are being developed as new information is generated. There is also great possibility for new experimental discovery. Most of the exciting results from RHIC experiments were unanticipated. The methods used for studying various effects like flow, jet quenching, the ridge, two particle correlations etc. were developed as experiments evolved. I believe this will continue to be the case at LHC and as we use existing and proposed accelerators to turn theoretical conjecture into tangible reality. At some point this will no doubt evolve into a precision science, and that will make the field more respectable, …