IAA Student Travel Awards will be granted to selected students who are IAA members in good standing and who will be the first author and presenter of an oral or poster presentation at the IAA biennial symposium.
Subject to available funds, the IAA Board will support student travel awards to: 1) assist and encourage student participation in IAA biennial symposia, and 2) promote and increase membership of the IAA.
All IAA Student Members in good standing who live beyond a reasonable daily commuting distance from the symposium venue and lack full institutional or grant support to cover attendance expenses are eligible. Recent graduates who are current Student Members may apply.
The IAA president and IAA Meeting Organizer will determine the number and amount of awards to be granted and the form of the awards (e.g., awards may consist of waived registration fee plus cash, or just cash, to the value of US$500). The number of awards offered and any cash amount must be approved in advance by the IAA Board. The IAA Board may choose to offer smaller awards to students living closer to the meeting venue.
Typically around half of any cash component of the awards will be distributed to students by the IAA Secretariat via PayPal at least one week prior to the meeting. The balance of any cash component will be paid in cash at the meeting, or via PayPal after the meeting, after students have satisfactorily met all conditions of the Travel Award (i.e., delivered presentation and completed any volunteer duties at the symposium as agreed).

One year before the biennial IAA meeting, the IAA president will appoint a Student Travel Award Committee, including a committee chair and at least three additional IAA members. Ideally, members will represent at least three continents.

The Committee will:

• advertise the travel awards
• solicit applications, encouraging students to apply only if they do not have another funding source to cover their meeting costs
• establish the application deadline
• confirm applicant membership status with the IAA Secretariat
• rank applications and select awardees
• inform the applicants, IAA president, meeting organizer, and IAA Secretariat of the names of award recipients at least 2 weeks before the meeting early registration deadline
• explain to recipients how the awards will be distributed, and
• confirm that awardees are first author and presenter on an accepted abstract and have registered for the meeting 30 days prior to the meeting.

Committee members may not rank applications of their own students.

If additional funding becomes available, additional awards will be granted based on initial application rankings.

Eligibility Requirements and Limitations

• An applicant must be a current IAA Student Member in good standing as of the award application deadline.
  This means that the current year membership fees must be paid and processed before the application deadline.

Note: it may take several days after submission of an IAA membership application for membership and fees to be processed.

• Students may be an undergraduate, MS or PhD student,
• Applicants must intend to make an oral or poster presentation at the meeting and must be the first author of that presentation, and give that presentation
• If an awardee fails to submit an abstract or register for the meeting at least 30 days before the meeting, the offer of an award will be withdrawn, and offered to another student,
• Students with full institutional or grant funding to support symposium attendance are not eligible to apply,
• Except in unavoidable circumstances, if a student fails to: (1) attend the symposium and does not notify the Travel Award Committee Chair 30 days before the symposium, (2) give a presentation as agreed, or (3) perform the agreed-upon volunteer hours/duties, any cash balance will not be paid and they will be ineligible for future travel awards.

Submission of Applications

• The complete application must be received by the application deadline. Failure to meet the deadline or to follow instructions will invalidate the application,
• The student must be an IAA member in good standing by the application deadline,
• A complete application must include the following completed forms:
• Application form,
• Abstract form,
• Statement of research goals and accomplishments form,
• Faculty supporting statement form, completed and signed by the applicant’s faculty advisor. This form must include a statement of financial need.
• To apply, submit a complete application by email to the committee chair by the application deadline.
  Faculty statements may be submitted separately but must be received by the deadline.

Assessment and Evaluation Procedures

Members of the IAA Student Travel Award Committee will evaluate and rank all eligible applications.

To be eligible, a student must:

• be a Student Member in good standing,
• be first author/presenter of an oral presentation or poster, and present at the symposium
• submit a complete application by the deadline,
• agree to volunteer at the symposium
• students may be asked to assist with limited volunteer duties at the symposium,
• live beyond a reasonable daily commuting distance of the symposium venue,
• lack full institutional or grant funding to cover costs of attendance.

Applications will be ranked on the following criteria:

• completeness and timeliness of the application,
• quality of the research and abstract,
• applicant’s statement of goals and accomplishments,
• faculty statement,
• financial need,
• IAA participation.

In the case of closely ranked applications, the Committee may give preference to students who have not previously received an IAA Student Travel Award.

If the number of highly meritorious applicants exceeds the number of available travel awards, the Committee may allocate awards so as to maintain a balance among disciplines and geographic distributions of recipients.

Note: Students need to acknowledge (in their presentations) that their attendance was supported by the IAA-STAs.