Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate computational chemistRY (MERCURY) is an NSF-funded consortium composed of 29 computational chemistry faculty from 25 primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) across the US. Aside from providing shared computational resources to these institutions, it promotes undergraduate research through the annual MERCURY conference. This is the 17th annual MERCURY conference and the second one held at Furman University in Greenville, SC. The previous six were hosted at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA and the first ten were at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY.  

Mainstays of the conference include six speakers who present excellent talks that provide background and specific findings in their respective fields, plus an undergraduate poster session and evening social networking events. This year includes a pre-conference MolSSI Coding Workshop on Wednesday, July 18 and Thursday July 19. This conference is an excellent forum for undergraduates from all types of institutions to present their work and to learn from experts in the field. It is equally valuable as a networking event for faculty working with undergraduates. Graduate students and postdoctoral associates may attend and learn how to work effectively with undergraduate research students.

Registration information will be provided soon and it will remain open until July 7, 2018.

Students must submit abstracts by July 6, 2018. Abstracts will be published in a booklet that will be available to all conference attendants. Abstract submissions guidelines are also described.