Middleware 2001 is pleased to announce its Student Travel Grant Program. The purpose of the program is to encourage graduate student participation at the conference by partially or fully funding the travel costs of students who would otherwise be unable to attend. Middleware 2001 thanks USENIX, IFIP, BBN Technologies, and IBM Research for funding the program this year.
Applications are accepted from students at degree granting institutions throughout the world. The committee strongly prefers to give grants to students who are not paper authors (the committee believes that the advisor or university should cover costs of authors). Poster authors, as well as work-in-progress authors, are encouraged to apply. Other criteria will include evidence of a serious interest in middleware, as demonstrated by coursework and project experience. In most cases, no more than one student will be funded from each school.
Legitimate costs covered by a grant include the student's travel (economy air or second class rail), food, and lodging. The breakdown of costs will differ based on the locations of the students. Each travel grant will cover actual costs (as evidenced by original receipts) up to a limit of $500.00; additionally, the conference registration fee will be waived for students receiving a travel grant.
The recipients of the travel grants will be decided by a committee including
Joe Sventek, chair, Agilent Laboratories
Prof. Guy LeDuc. University of Liege
Rick Schantz, BBN Technologies
Isabelle Rouvellou, IBM Research
Prof. Maarten van Steen, Vrije Universiteit
An application for a travel grant will consist of a letter from the student and a recommendation letter from the student's advisor. The letter from the student should
indicate why the student believes he or she would benefit from attending the Middleware 2001 conference,
contain a brief summary of research interests and accomplishments to date,
describe areas reflected in the Middleware 2001 program that will impact the student's research,
have the student's vita attached, including relevant coursework and grades.
In addition, the student's advisor should send a letter of recommendation to the committee,
confirming that the student is a Ph.D. candidate in good standing,
indicating why the advisor believes the student would benefit from attending the conference,
giving the advisor's opinion about the strengths and potential contributions of the student.
Send the application and recommendation letters by e-mail to Joe Sventek (joe_sventek@agilent.com) in ASCII (highest preference), PDF, or Postscript (lowest preference) ONLY. Any questions about the student travel grant program may be addressed to the same address.
A deadline of Friday, 31 August 2001, has been set for the receipt of applications, both for the letter of the student and of the advisor. The recipients selected by the committee will be notified by Friday, 14 September 2001. Each recipient will be required to accept the grant by Friday, 21 September 2001, so that alternates can be notified in the event that a recipient declines. (All deadlines are 1800 GMT.)