FUNDING APPLICATION REVIEW DEADLINES
July 15        October 15          January 15          April 15

Funding applications should be submitted well in advance of your travel date.  Please use the funding review deadlines shown above accordingly, i.e. don’t submit an October 16 travel date for the October 15 review!  [Funding decisions will be made within two weeks - by August 1, November 1, February 1 and May 1.]  The source of the majority of travel funding for this academic year is a Quality of Graduate Education Grant that was applied for, and awarded to, the MBIDP by UCLA’s Graduate Division.  Students selected by the MBIDP to receive travel funding will receive an Offer of Graduate Student Support notification from Graduate Division, which the student must formally accept.  The funds are then issued to the student by Student Accounting in the same manner in which the student already receives stipend or payroll payments (such as Surepay direct deposit).  This process generally takes about one month.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES
Supporting travel to national and international conferences is a major philosophical component of the MBIDP training program. Travel exposes students to the international community and a broader view of their own work. Attendance at conferences provides students with opportunities to network, establish collaborations, and seek potential postdoctoral connections.  To be eligible for conference travel funds, you must be presenting a talk and/or poster at the conference.

COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
Travel funding is available for students who wish to take specialized courses and take part in workshops outside of UCLA, such as Cold Spring Harbor courses and EMBO workshops.  We will fund travel, registration, and accommodation costs, providing an opportunity for students to supplement their education with outside learning.  For courses directly related to a student’s mentor’s research, a matching contribution from the mentor will be considered favorably in terms of the amount of the final award.  For students close to the end of their time-to-degree path, in order to increase their potential in the job market, we will cover the entire cost of courses taken for instruction in new fields of research.

GENERAL CRITERIA CONSIDERED FOR FUNDING PRIORITIES

• Student’s compliance with time-to-degree requirements.  Students who are not up-to-date will be ineligible for travel funding.
• Student’s involvement in MBIDP’s efforts to increase the diversity of the UCLA student population. Examples: participation in the high school outreach programs, the UC Edge Graduate Recruitment Day luncheon, mentoring of underrepresented minority undergraduate researchers through CARE, MARC and/or BRIDGE programs or through their own laboratories. Participation in these programs can be highly enjoyable and fulfilling, and we encourage you to become involved.*  The MBIDP Graduate Office will be happy to assist.
• Offer of cost-sharing from the student’s mentor or other funding source (e.g. training grant, individual fellowship, conference organizers) for conference attendance or course/workshop enrollment related to mentor’s research. We encourage you to request the support of the meeting organizers. Occasionally, there is funding available for young investigators, women, and underrepresented minorities.

*For recipients of a Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority Fellowship (a Gordon Research Conferences Minority Diversity Initiative), we will cover the balance of registration and airline fees. The fellowship is available for Native American (this includes North, Central, and South America), African American, and Hispanic American graduate students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and who have not previously attended a Gordon Conference. There are no deadlines for applying for the fellowship itself; refer to the deadline for registration for the conference you wish to attend. Apply online. Applications from students who receive such extramural support are viewed especially favorably. In the event that after receiving travel funding from the MBIDP, extramural funding sources are also made available to you, we need to be informed.