Becca Bauman and Shirin Raschid Farrokhi, recipients of 2023
Undergraduate Research Fellowships, were among the AISC Education
Foundation's student guests at NASCC: The Steel Conference.

This year's NASCC: The Steel Conference in San Antonio was a soaring success for the Education Foundation and our Foundation-supported participants, thanks to you!

We brought five students and our 2024 Reidar Bjorhovde Outstanding Young Professional Award recipient to the Steel Conference through travel grants and fellowships made possible by donors like you. We kept them busy all week at educational sessions, networking events, our Students Connecting with Industry Sessions (SCIS), the Exhibit Hall, and much more. You'll hear more about their individual experiences (spoiler: they had a blast and made some really important connections!) in the May 2024 Impact Update--stay tuned!

At the conference, we made the exciting announcement that we're expanding our Undergraduate Research Fellowship program thanks to a generous contribution of $200,000 from Dennis R. McCartney of B&B Welding Company, Inc.

The newly renamed AISC Ernest J. McCartney/B&B Welding Company, Inc. Undergraduate Research Fellowships make room for larger annual award amounts and broader timeframes for eligible projects. Awarded students will now receive $8,000 for projects spanning a full academic year or $4,000 for projects spanning one semester.

We can't adequately express how much it means to the Foundation that we can propel this program forward and better invest in student researchers for years to come.

We were also thrilled to launch our new Campus Connection grant program, which will provide faculty with the resources and funding to bring industry-leading speakers to their own universities. At this year's Steel Conference, faculty had the opportunity to connect with speakers from the sessions they found most inspiring and invite them to campus.

Keep an eye out for exciting updates as we move forward with grant approvals and see these speaking engagements in action!

And lastly, thanks to contributions collected from Steel Conference registrants and purchases of special AISC-themed merchandise by conference participants, the Foundation received more than $11,000. What an outstanding week!

We appreciate all that you do to enrich the lives of our beneficiaries and foster their professional development. The Foundation has had a fantastic start to 2024, and we can't thank you enough for your contribution to our growth, our outreach, and our impact.