Graduate Student Travel Award

The department has limited funds available to award to current M.S. and Ph.D. graduate students in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences for travel to present at national and international conferences or to participate in field projects, summer schools, lab exchanges, collaboration visits, and other activities that enhance graduate scholarship.

To best accommodate all requests, the department will accept applications on a rolling basis. Travel awards are limited to a maximum of $1,000 and are not meant to substitute for funding from your advisor. Preference is given to those who have not previously received this award.

Decisions will be made within approximately one week of receiving the application by a committee consisting of the chair and department administrator. Evidence of positive yearly progress in your graduate degree is expected to be considered eligible for funding.

Some awards may incur obligations. For example, some of the available funds are designated for recruiting of prospective students, and thus may require participation in outreach efforts such as helping operate a recruiting booth. Others may require matching support from the students advisor. Also, upon return from supported travel to a field project, the student may be expected to present a short talk on their experience at an upcoming department seminar, within one year, and/or to submit a short first-person article about their experience for inclusion in the departmental newsletter.

To apply, please send a single PDF attachment in an email to the department administrator and include the following:

1. A short letter that indicates the name, date, location of the conference, course, or field project, whether you will be presenting or participating in some other fashion, the title of your abstract, and the purpose of the travel and how it benefits your graduate education. Include a discussion of how far along you are with your AOS degree. Provide a breakdown of total costs (airfare, lodging, registration, meals), the amount of outside support (advisor, other grants, awards, out of pocket) you have, and the amount you seek from AOS. List dates of previous AOS travel awards and their use. Finally, if there is an opportunity for you to provide outreach for prospective grad student recruitment (such as running a booth), please indicate whether you are willing and able to do so.

2. A copy of the workshop or course brochure, email invitation, the front page of the website for the meeting, and/or a letter of invitation or acceptance of an abstract, if you have one.

3. A letter from your advisor indicating what funds they would use to support the travel beyond the award and explain why total funding from the advisor is not possible (not applicable for Professional MS students).

Please note that you will need to follow standard UW travel policies, including the use of e-reimbursement and booking of airfare through our contract vendors where possible.