Student Travel Awards

The purpose of the program is to encourage graduate student participation at the conference by partially or fully funding the travel costs of students who would otherwise be unable to attend. SIGCOMM 2003 thanks National Science Foundation, HP Labs, and NEC for funding the program this year.
Who Should Apply:

Applications are accepted from students at degree granting institutions throughout the world. The committee strongly prefers to give grants to students who are not paper authors (the committee believes that the advisor or university should cover costs from authors). Poster authors, however, are encouraged to apply. Other criteria will include evidence of a serious interest in networking, as demonstrated by coursework and project experience. In most cases, no more than one student will be funded from each school. ACM SIGCOMM encourages participation of women and under-represented minorities.
What is Covered:

The amount of support provided to each student is intended to cover the student's travel (economy airfare), food and lodging for four nights. The breakdown of costs will differ based on the locations of the students.
Who Decides:

The recipients of the travel grants will be decided by the student travel committee:
Dan Rubenstein, Chair, Columbia University
Matthias Grossglauser, EPFL
Lixia Zhang, UCLA
How To Apply:

An application for a travel grant will consist of a letter from the student and a recommendation letter from the student's advisor. The letter from the student should:
  • Indicate their affiliation and any other personal information the student feels is relevant to support their case.
  • Inidcate specifically any items regarding this year's conference (e.g., paper topics) that would favor their receipt of the grant over other applicants.
  • Include a brief summary of research interests and accomplishments to date, contain a description of areas reflected in the SIGCOMM 2003 program that would impact the student's research,
  • Include a short (1/2 page) vita, containing relevant coursework and grades.
  • In addition, the student's advisor should send a letter of recommendation to the committee. This letter should
    • confirm that the student is a Ph.D. candidate in good standing.
    • indicate why the student would benefit from attending the conference.
    • elaborate on the strengths and potential contributions of the student. '
    • indicate current funding status, or explain why, given the above recommendation,
Send application and recommendation letters by e-mail to: sigcomm03-student-travel@cs.columbia.edu in ASCII (highly preferable), PostScript or PDF format ONLY.
Important Dates:

  • June 13, 2003 Application submission deadline
  • June 25, 2003 Hotel Reservations must be made by this date to receive the SIGCOMM discount (they can subsequently be cancelled
  • June 30, 2003 Notification date
  • July 7, 2003 Acceptance confirmation
Recipients will be required to accept the grant by this date, so that alternates can be notified in the event that a recipient declines. The early notification will assist in finding cheaper airline tickets.