The Francis Dunstan Travel Award

The Francis Dunstan Travel Award has been established to recognise and support an outstanding PhD student through financial support to present their research to an international audience annually at the major international conference on vibrational spectroscopy each year which is currently either ICORS or ICAVS. The award is named in memory of Dr Francis Elliott Dunstan and to honour his bequest to the IRDG and in recognition of his support for the IRDG.

This student award is an annual which will enable an outstanding student to attend and present their research at either the International Conference on Vibrational Spectroscopy (ICAVS) or the International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy (ICORS) conferences which both take place every two years on alternate years.

Criteria:

  1. This is an annual IRDG award which will be presented to an outstanding PhD student to allow them to attend and present their research on vibrational spectroscopy at ICORS or ICAVS.
  2. The Francis Dunstan Award will consist of £500 towards travel to attend the conference.
  3. The student awardee must have attended a meeting of the IRDG in the 3 years prior to the year of the award and still be a registered PhD student at the time of the conference presentation.
  4. The student must be carrying out research in the area of vibrational spectroscopy.
  5. Applicants must submit a copy of the conference abstract that they would submit to ICORS/ICAVS, their CV and a supporting statement (no more than one side of A4 paper) outlining their achievements and why the attendance at ICIRS/ICAVS would benefit them.
  6. The deadline for applications will be the posted on the IRDG website in the year of the meeting of interest and applications should be sent via email to awards [at] irdg.org.

List of Award Winners

Dr Francis Dunstan

Many members of the IRDG will remember Dr Francis Dunstan who died on June 16 2017 at the age of 80. After graduating from Birmingham University Francis studied with two pioneers of IR spectroscopy, Dr David Whiffen and Professor Norman Sheppard. He joined Perkin Elmer in 1966 as an IR applications chemist, eventually becoming a product specialist for IR spectroscopy. Although initially working in the UK Francis became part of an international marketing group and travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, Africa and central and southern America. Francis remained with Perkin Elmer until his retirement. His fascination with instruments led him to acquire a remarkable collection of IR spectrometers at his home.