Conference and Research Travel Grants
The Graduate School is able to provide limited funding opportunities to graduate students to present conference research, conduct research, and, at times, conference attendance.
Before you apply, be sure to have information about your travel plans handy. You will also be asked to provide a Plan of Work indicating how you plan to spend your time during your research travel. You will need to utilize your ISU.edu email to access the form.
The Graduate School meets to review applications once a month at the beginning of each month, and awards will be issued by the 10th of each month. If your application for support is not received before the 1st of the month, it will be evaluated at the beginning of the following month.
Students with a current minimum 3.0 GPA are eligible.
"I am very grateful to have received research support from ISU’s graduate school this summer. It enabled me to get a significant head start on my doctoral research project by allowing me to purchase many of the necessary supplies and begin method development. My research uses both plant microfossils (i.e., phytoliths) and microbial (i.e., Bacteria and Fungi) DNA extracted from sediments to detect and characterize human-induced ecological change in the archaeological record. I plan to use this combined approach to obtain a fine-scale measure of the ecological responses of microbes over time through metagenomic analysis while also providing environmental context in the form of diagnostic phytolith morphotypes from known plant taxa. This summer, I was able to purchase some of the supplies and begin processing sediment samples for DNA extraction, amplification, and NGS library construction at ISU’s Center for Archaeology, Materials, and Applied Spectroscopy (CAMAS). I was also able to begin the development of a method that uses flow cytometry (at ISU’s Molecular Research Core Facility) to quickly sort and isolate plant phytoliths from sediment, reducing total preparation time from hours to just minutes per sample. I look forward to continuing my research this fall at CAMAS and the MRCF with the goal of defending my dissertation and graduating by the end of 2025."
- Rebecca Hazard
"I sincerely appreciate the financial support from the ISU Graduate School, as it has not only facilitated my current research but also motivated me to strive for excellence. The encouragement I have received through this funding has strengthened my resolve to pursue innovative solutions in renewable energy and smart grid technologies. Thank you for your generosity and belief in my research."
- Monsoon Thapa
"I am thankful for being awarded the Creative Works grant by Idaho State University’s Graduate School. The Creative Works grant has been instrumental in funding chemical analysis for my project. The funding received is being used to partially fund chemical analysis of soil from the sides of interstate highways by BYU’s Environmental Analytical Laboratories. The chemical analysis will be used to view shifts in chemical properties in the soil that are caused by application of soil amendments such as fertilizers and commercial microbial sprays. These chemical shifts will help us to understand the circumstances and environments that are beneficial for native plant revegetation along the sides of highways and direct changes to microbial communities in the soil. Being awarded this grant has enabled me to take my project further by allowing an additional season of sampling and data collection for the chemical data."
- Eric Christen