FOR STUDENTS

For SMM2026, student travel grants will be available to cover registration fees and travel costs (including airfare, housing, and food) for any student who is presenting at the conference. Unfortunately, we cannot offer grants to students who are attending the conference but not presenting. 

Grants are awarded by the SMM Student Affairs Committee, and the number of grants and amount awarded will depend on our budget, the number of applicants, and student needs, including but not limited to travel distance, nationality, home institution, and the number of virtual registrations. 

For this reason, we are not able to provide grants to everyone, and the amount we are able to award may not be enough to cover all expenses. We strongly encourage you to apply for multiple sources of funding and we ask that you please not apply for the SMM travel grant if you do not need funding and/or you will be funded by your own institution, to give other students the opportunity to access the grants.

To apply for a student travel grant for the 2026 conference, you will need to:

1. Be submitting an abstract for a presentation of any format (long, short, poster or video).
2. Be a student member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy at the time you submit your abstract. You will be asked to provide your supervisor’s name and institutional email address and a letter from your supervisor confirming your student status. Grants will not be awarded without a verification letter. Click HERE for an example.
3. Respond “Yes” to the “Are you a student?” question box in the online abstract submission process.
4. Answer a series of questions on the online abstract submission page, including:

• • Your nationality
  • The region in which your research took place
  • The country where your home institution is located
  • Where you are traveling from for the conference
  • Whether your research involves innovative technology or techniques 
  • What level of student you are (undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate)
  • The type of support required (accommodation, food, airfare, and/or conference registration – you can select some or all of these)
  • Amount of support requested 
  • Whether you have applied or will be applying for other grants besides this one 
  • Whether you have previously attended and/or present at an SMM conference, and when
  • Whether you previously received a student travel grant, and when

Again, student travel grants will only be awarded to students who have their abstracts accepted for presentation and are registered student members of the Society for Marine Mammalogy.

Travel grant allocation decisions will be sent out before the deadline for accepting or declining your presentation offer. Please watch for an email from smal@marinemammalscience.org. If you no longer require a travel grant, please contact the SMaLs as soon as possible so they can allocate the funds to others.

We rely on volunteers to help with a range of tasks before and during the conference. Your dedication is essential to making SMM2026 a success! Volunteers not only gain the rewarding experience of giving back to the marine mammal community and receive a stylish volunteer garment, but those contributing a minimum of 12 hours are also eligible for a conference registration reimbursement: student members and members from low-income countries receive 50% of their registration fee, while full members receive $100 USD. Reimbursements are issued after the conference upon completion of the required hours. For more information on volunteering, click HERE.