Experiences of a Travel Recipient

Hi Ken,

Hope you had a safe trip back from the ASHRAE Annual Conference.

I wanted to take a moment post-conference to thank you and the rest of the College of Fellows for both your generosity and hospitality. I cannot tell you how much it means as a graduate student and young ASHRAE member to have financial support to come to the conferences through the ASHRAE College of Fellows Travel Award.

But more importantly, the opportunity to meet and interact with the Fellows and with my conference mentor, Sheila Hayter, turned the travel funding into a longer-term investment in my career and future involvement within ASHRAE. The Fellows are such a lovely and accomplished group of people and I really enjoyed sitting in on the COF meeting with all of you. Sheila truly went above and beyond the call of mentoring duty - she let me sit in on all of her meetings, introduced me to everyone (and she really does know everyone!), and took the time to understand my own background and career goals. Sheila showed me a very different, fascinating, big-picture version of the Society than I would have gotten had I just gone to TC meetings and technical sessions on my own. This was my third ASHRAE conference and it was by far the most engaging because I could benefit from the expertise of Sheila and the rest of the COF.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. It means a lot to have your support and the support of the COF. Can't wait for Orlando!

Many thanks,
Amanda

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Amanda Laurel Webb
PhD Candidate
Department of Architectural Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University