Grants to Support Knowledge Exchange - Elery Worsley

Elery Worsley, 2024 Grant to Support Knowledge Exchange recipient shares her experience.

In October 2024, I was fortunate to be able to attend the ECS PRiME 2024 Conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i, thanks to the generous assistance provided by the IOM3 Grants to Support Knowledge Exchange. This conference is a global meeting on electrochemical and solid-state science, covering a wide range of topic. It occurs every four years, and this year had over 5,000 abstracts presented in posters or oral talks, with delegates representing 60 countries. I felt very privileged to have been accepted to present my EngD work on green solvents for supercapacitors as a poster at the conference and would not have been able to attend without this financial support from IOM3.

During the week, I was able to explore the latest research in the field of electrical energy storage. It was exciting to have so many sessions dedicated to supercapacitor research, as this had been very lacking at the smaller conferences I had attended previously. During the poster session I engaged with researchers from many different disciplines, both while discussing my own work and while talking to other attendees presenting posters during the session.

Outside of the academic sessions in the conference I also took part in networking events, and even made it into the cover photo for the conference opening reception, as seen in the second photo! I also made sure to explore the local Hawai’ian culture while out there, which was an incredible opportunity. We visited local National Parks to fully appreciate the Hawai’ian natural scenery, such as the Jurassic parkland at Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden. I also had the amazing experience of seeing native sea turtles (called Honu) relaxing in their natural habitat.

Overall, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, both in terms of the scale of the conference and its location, and I am so grateful to IOM3 for making it possible. It was an honour to present my work at such a prestigious conference with such a global audience. I highly recommend other students apply for this grant to help fund research experiences in future!