The inaugural recipient of a travel grant supported by the Louis & Nellie Sieg and Frank G. & Gertrude Dunlap Scholarship Fund, USA, to assist research in Medieval Studies has been announced by NUI Galway.

Professor Nicholas Canny, Vice President for Research, NUI Galway, presented Rory Sherlock, a Ph.D student in Archaeology, with his award of €1,200 which will enable him to attend the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, next month. Mr Sherlock will present his paper on 'Past and Present Approaches to the Study of Tower Houses in Ireland' at the Kalamazoo Congress, which attracts over 3,000 scholars worldwide with an interest in Medieval Studies.

Mr Sherlock will be accompanied to the Kalamazoo Congress by Dr Kieran O'Conor, Department of Archaeology, NUI Galway, who will address a panel devoted to 'New Research on Castles in Britain and Ireland'; and Dr Kimberly A LoPrete, Department of History, NUI Galway, who will speak on a panel she organised on 'New Documentary Communities in the Twelfth Century'.

The scholarship fund has been established with an endowment donated by a Michigan-based charitable organisation, the LoPrete Family Foundation, which supports educational activities in the Arts and Humanities among other ventures. Recipients of the award are selected annually by a panel of academics convened by the Director of the MA in Medieval Studies at NUI Galway, Professor Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. For further information on the scholarship, see http://www.nuigalway.ie/medievalstudies/ .

Further details on this year's International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo can be found at: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress.