FOR STUDENTS

For SMM2024, 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 2024 conference, you will need to:

1. Be submitting an abstract for a presentation of any format (oral, poster, speed talk, or video).
2. Be registered to attend SMM2024 at the time you submit your abstract.
3. 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.
4. Respond “Yes” to the “Are you a student?” question box in the online abstract submission process.
5. 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 available for students who have registered for the conference and have their abstracts accepted for presentation.

Travel grant allocation decisions will be sent out by June 10, 2024, 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.