Student Travel Grant

The IEEE SECON 2016 conference is pleased to announce the availability of the following types of student travel grants: A. Travel grants sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society.
B. US National Science Foundation (NSF) travel grant opportunity for US-based students (approval pending).
C. National Instruments student travel grant.

Following the application guidelines below, a student may apply to one or more of the following categories for which he/she is eligible. The eligibility criteria include:

A. These student travel grants are sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society. Applications are invited from qualified full-time graduate students. To qualify a student must: (i) be a valid Student Member of the COMSOC at the time of application; (ii) be a full-time student registered toward a Bachelors, Masters, or Ph.D. degree in engineering or related field in a college or university when submitting the application; (iii) be an author who will present an accepted paper at this Conference, including its workshops; (iv) not have received a similar grant in the past 12 months.

B. U.S. NSF support for the student travel grants for this conference (pending approval), invites qualified graduate students, who should (i) be a co-author of a paper accepted by SECON 2016, and (ii) be studying in an accredited U.S. institution. Diversity is strongly encouraged. Student recipients will be reimbursed (based on valid receipts) for their expenses after the conference. All flights made on a NSF travel grant award must be either on a US-flag carrier or ticketed through an US-carrier (e.g., codeshare flights on international airlines).

C. Two travel grants from National Instruments. This is similar to Category A.

 

Application Procedure

An application for a student travel award will consist of:
1. A letter from the student, including, when applicable, the title of the paper that has been accepted for SECON 2016; 2. The student’s CV;
3. A supporting letter from the student’s graduate advisor;
4. An estimate of the following costs of attending SECON: airfare, hotel, and conference registration. It is anticipated that travel grants will only partially cover the overall cost of attending SECON 2016;
5. The type(s) of travel grant the student is applying for (A, B, C).
Incomplete applications will not be considered.

 

The letter from the student should include (at most 1 page):
1. A brief summary of research interests and accomplishments to date.
2. A description of areas reflected in the SECON 2016 program that would impact the student’s research, and a statement about why the conference attendance is important to the student.

 

The advisor’s recommendation letter for the student should include:
1. Confirmation that the student is a bona fide full-time Ph.D. or M.S. candidate in good academic standing at the given Institution.
2. Why this particular student would benefit from attending the conference.
3. The strengths and potential contributions of the student.

Applicants should send their applications through Email to pompili@ece.rutgers.edu and rvprasad@ieee.org:

1. With Subject: SECON-2016 Student Grant Application (please note, emails may be missed without this subject)
2. Please mention the paper title and HotCRP paper number if applicable.
3. All materials as outlined above as a single PDF file

Deadlines
Application deadline: May 15, 2016 at 23:59 EST
Notification deadline: May 22, 2016
Awardee acceptance deadline: May 31, 2016 at 23:59 EST

FAQs
1. Should I merge my advisor’s recommendation letter with my application for submission?

Yes. Every applicant should submit all application materials as a single PDF file, which includes all required items listed in the “Application Procedure” section described above.

2. Should the advisor's recommendation letter be also in PDF?

Yes. It should be an item in the single application file in PDF submitted by the student applicant.

3. If my advisor prefers to submit the recommendation letter separately from my application, what should I do?

Please ask your advisor to send the recommendation letter to Dr. Dario Pompili and Dr. Venkatesha Prasad (STG co-chairs) via email (pompili@ece.rutgers.edu and rvprasad@ieee.org).

4. Am I eligible to apply for the student travel grant being an author of a workshop paper? You are welcome to apply, but please consider that your application will be given lower priority with respect to regular SECON papers, so the probability of receiving an award is low.

 

Award Selection Committee
Venkatesha Prasad, TU Delft, Netherlands
Dario Pompili, Rutgers University, USA

Award Selection Committee Advisors
Prasun Sinha, OSU, USA
Kin K Leung, Imperial College, London, UK

Contact
If your question is not addressed in the FAQ section, please contact the Student Travel Grant Co-Chairs Dr. Dario Pompili (pompili@ece.rutgers.edu) and Dr. Venkatesha Prasad (rvprasad@ieee.org).