Graduate students are encouraged to attend (and, if possible, lecture at) professional meetings, research conferences and workshops, which are an important way to learn about new mathematics and make professional contacts. The AMS Mathematics Calendar is a good resource for finding out what's available.
Of course, attending such meetings costs money, especially if they are not in our local area. Here's the recommended way to look for funding.
- Sometimes their are funds for specific meetings set aside for graduate students. Check the web page of the conference, or contact the organizers.
- Ask your advisor: he or she may have grant money that can be used to defray some or all of your travel costs.
- The mathematics department, and the graduate school, both have a modest amount of money budgeted for student travel to conferences. Before making such a request for these funds, you should first look into the two sources of funding mentioned above (the conference organizers and your advisor). To request money from these sources:
- The graduate school now has 2 rounds of reviews for conference travel funding annually, with a March 1 and October 3 deadlines respectively. Request for travel support is now handled online through http://gsnb.rutgers.edu/awards/conference-travel.
- To submit request for travel funding from the mathematics department, send an email to the Graduate Program Director, providing some details and documentation about the requested funding (conference information, whether conference provides funding for graduate students, brief justification for how the conference would help your progress in the program, and a budget), also indicating the efforts you have made to obtain alternate funding (see above) and the amount of funding you were able to obtain.
