Student Travel Awards for IEEE/ACM CCGrid 2015 Conference
About 15 student travel awards will be provided to CCGrid 2015 attendees, pending on US NSF approval. The award will fund the costs of student's conference registration, up to five nights of conference hotel stay, and flight ticket (from U.S Carrier only), with total up to $1666 USD for each student. The students will be informed about the reimbursement process after being selected for the award.
All students who are funded out of the travel grant will be required to present a poster and a short talk about their Ph.D. research.
Student Activities
The student activities planned this year are separated into three categories:
- 1. Conference planning. CCGrid is a large conference with many interesting events, including workshops, keynotes, SCALE challenge, industry sessions, poster session, award sessions, and networking events. It is impossible for a person to attend all parts of the conference, since some of the events overlap in time. Hence a custom agenda is important for students to take most advantage of the conference keeping in mind what their research focus is and interests are. Often students are not aware of the different facets of the conference and tend to focus only on the main conference technical program. We plan to start the conference (likely the night before the conference) with mentorship meetings where some senior researchers who are more experienced with the conference will explain the various events at the conference and work with individual students to custom create an agenda for each student.
- 2. Posters and Doctoral Symposium. All students participating in this program are required to present a short talk during the conference and present a poster describing their research areas at the poster session. This allows the students to engage in more face-to-face conversations with senior researchers and get feedback on their research areas.
- 3. Lunchtime Mentorship Activities. This year we are adding mentorship activities to train students in different ways. These will be organized as lunchtime activities where the students would work be accompanied by senior researchers, who would spend time discussing various topics of interest with them. These include: (1) how to write effective papers, (2) careers in academia, industry and national labs, and (3) paper presentation techniques. The areas are not fixed, but are rather designed to be starting points for conversations. The lunches will be organized as casual conversations, rather than formal events, with each round table of 5-6 students accompanied by 1-2 senior researchers in the area.
The students would be asked to write up about their experiences and what they learned from these discussions. A short report will be generated at the end of the conference explaining the full extent of these activities, and published on the conference website. A few selected students may be invited to participate in the report generation process.
Applicant Eligibility
- The student must be enrolled in a graduate program at an accredited U.S. institution in good standing. Recipients need not be a US citizen or a permanent resident.
- The student has registered to attend CCGrid 2015. The registration would give access to all parts of the program to the student, including the main conference sessions, workshops, poster session, doctoral symposium, SCALE challenge, and all meals and the banquet.
- The student will need to participate in the doctoral symposium of the conference, a meet-and-greet session targeted for travel grant awardees, and attend at least one of the following programs, the main technical conference, a workshop, the posters, and the Scale challenge, so as to gain the best value out of the conference.
- The student will submit a trip report describing the experience at the conference and the benefit of attending, which is required for travel reimbursement
- The funding will be used for student travel-related expenses such as airfare, hotel, etc. Actual expenses up to a certain limit will be reimbursed after the conference. (According to NSF policy, only airfare on a US-based carrier will be reimbursed.)
- Students of the travel award committee members (including the general chairs, program chairs, and the student award chair) are not eligible
Application Materials
An application for a travel award will consist of the student's vita, a letter from the student, and a letter from the student's advisor.
The letter from the student should include:
- A brief summary of research interests and accomplishments to date;
- A description of areas reflected in the CCGrid 2015 program that would impact the student's research;
- Explanation on why attending CCGrid 2015 is important to the student; and what experiences/outcomes expected from the conference attendance, and how the travel award assisted them in participation.
- Applicants are encouraged to make their travel plans without depending on notification from the committee to ensure that lowest cost flights and accommodations have been secured.
- Address any inquiries to palden.lama@utsa.edu.
In addition, the student's advisor should send a signed letter of endorsement to the committee, including:
- Confirmation that the student is a graduate student in good standing;
- The suitability of the CCGrid 2015 program material to the student's research area;
- Ways this particular student would benefit from attendance at the conference;
- The strengths and potential contributions of the student; and
- Availability of funds from other sources.
All materials for an application will be emailed to palden.lama@utsa.edu.
Important Dates
- March 16, 2015: Applications due
- March 31: Notification of awards
- June 1: All documents (including receipts and trip report) for reimbursement due
Note that
- 1) The student will submit a trip report describing the experience at the conference, which is required for travel reimbursement
- 2) The reimbursements may take up to two months.
Selection Process and Criteria
After distribution to the rest of the committee, each member will rank the applicants. The committee will make final selections via email discussions and a conference call.
The student travel award chair will summarize all applicants’ info and circulate to the rest of the selection committee. Each member will rank the applicants, and the committee members collectively make the final decisions based on the selection criteria.
The following explicit criteria will be used in the selection process:
- Priority will be given to students who ordinarily could not attend, e.g., students without accepted papers in the main conference or workshops, or students with accepted papers but without support from their advisors through other grants. In the former, CCGrid will provide educational opportunity such as a poster session or the doctoral symposium or the SCALE challenge.
- The selection committee will evaluate the merits of accepted papers or the educational activities when selecting the travel grant recipients.
- Diversity shall be considered for attendees from the main technical conference, workshops, doctorial symposium, posters, and Scale challenge.
- Special considerations will also be made for student participants who are underrepresented minorities (i.e., African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Native Pacific Islanders) and/or women, coming from diverse institutions.