The goal of the Foundation's Indoor Environment program is to grow a new field of scientific inquiry that eventually will be funded by traditional U.S. government funding agencies. This grant to Mark Hernandez of the University of California, Boulder will fund three annual conferences to bring together the large, diverse, multidisciplinary community of biologists, engineers, architects, and others studying the microbiology of built environments. At the conferences, scientists will share research results, develop and advance a coordinated research agenda for studying indoor microbial populations, and educate NGOs and key federal agencies about the importance of directing research and regulatory to this new field of inquiry.