Neuroscience Graduate Student Travel Award Program

The UVA Brain Institute is excited to announce the opening of the UVA Brain Institute Neuroscience Graduate Student Travel Award Program. We are now accepting applications from rising second-year graduate students who are conducting neuroscience research in any school across UVA to attend the 2025 Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Meeting in San Diego, CA (November 15–19, 2025). 

We encourage all interested and eligible students to apply.

Eligibility

Graduate students are eligible if they:

• Are a rising 2nd year graduate student in a lab doing neuroscience research
• Have not received any other funding to attend a meeting/conference/symposium for 2025
• Have submitted an abstract to and are willing to present their accepted poster at SfN 2025

Funding

Awardees will receive $2,000. Funds will be dispersed to each awardee’s primary department, and awardees should follow their department’s standard reimbursement processes.

Application Process

Applicants should submit:

1. The abstract submitted to SfN – Include title, author list, and an abstract of no more than 2,300 characters, including punctuation but not spaces
2. A paragraph (no more than 300 words) describing the impact of this travel award on their future career goals
3. A Specific Aims or Objectives page on their anticipated thesis project – not to exceed 1 page (single-spaced, 11-point font, with 0.5-inch margins)
4. Curriculum Vitae (CV)
5. Unofficial UVA graduate transcript

Reviewers will assess each application based on merit, considering clarity of the specific aims page, impact on the applicant, and the applicant’s preparation for undertaking the project. Feedback will not be returned to applicants.

Decisions will be communicated to all applicants by Monday, June 30, 2025.

Questions?

Please reach out to the Brain Institute at BrainUVA@uvahealth.org.