The Association for Women in Mathematics has administered the NSF-AWM Travel Grant Program for Women since 1988, supporting both travel to domestic or foreign research conferences and, more recently, longer-term visits with a mentor.

Travel Grants. Enabling women mathematicians to attend conferences in their fields provides them a valuable opportunity to advance their research activities and their visibility in the research community. Having more women attend such meetings also increases the size of the pool from which speakers at subsequent meetings may be drawn and thus addresses the persistent problem of the absence of women speakers at some research conferences. The Mathematics Travel Grants provide full or partial support for travel and subsistence for a meeting or conference in the applicant’s field of specialization.

Mentoring Travel Grants (New August 15 deadline added!). The objective of the NSF-AWM Mathematics Mentoring Travel Grants is to help junior women develop a long-term working and mentoring relationship with a senior mathematician. This relationship should help the junior mathematician to establish her research program and eventually receive tenure. Each grant funds travel, accommodations, and other required expenses for an untenured woman mathematician to travel to an institute or a department to do research with a specified individual for one month. The applicant’s and mentor’s research must be in a field that is supported by the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the National Science Foundation.

AWM's travel grant programs promote the advancement of women in mathematics by:

• Enabling them to present their research at conferences and network with colleagues.

• Fostering mentorship and collaboration between junior and senior women mathematicians.

Application Deadlines: Application sites open approximately 45 days in advance of the deadline.

• Travel Grants: February 15, May 15, and October 1.

• Mentoring Travel Grants: February 15, August 15.

Application Packet: An application packet should include:

• Research Proposal. The research itself should be of high quality, and the proposal should give a clear, concise explanation of results, reasonably understandable to a lay mathematician. The proposal should be two to three pages in length and should address the following:

  • In what way did your work go beyond what was known?

  • What are the connections to (and implications for) other results or open questions?

  • What are the expected benefits of attending the conference?

  • Who are the major speakers at the conference that are related to your field?

  • How relevant is the conference to your research area?

  • Will there be opportunities to discuss mathematics, and are there specific people with whom you expect to confer? Are you giving a talk, or does the nature of the conference preclude that?

  Award Criteria. The purpose of the travel grants is to enhance the research activities of women mathematicians and increase their visibility in various research venues. Decisions on the level of funding provided to successful applicants are based both on funds available to the panel and on our evaluation of whether the level requested was appropriate.

Selection Procedure. All awards will be determined on a competitive basis by a selection panel consisting of distinguished mathematicians appointed by the AWM.

• Travel Grants. A maximum of $2,300 for domestic travel and $3,500 for foreign travel will be funded. For foreign travel, US air carriers must be used (exceptions only per federal grants regulations; prior AWM approval required).

• Mentoring Travel Grant. AWM expects to award up to seven grants, in amounts up to $5,000 each. Awardees may request to use any unexpended funds for further travel to work with the same individual during the following year. In such cases, a formal request must be submitted by the following February 1 to the selection committee or funds will be released for re-allocation.

Eligibility. These travel funds are provided by the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) of the National Science Foundation. The conference or the applicant’s research must be in an area supported by DMS.

• Travel Grants. Anyone who has been awarded an AWM-NSF travel grant in the past two years is ineligible. Anyone receiving more than $2000 yearly in external governmental funding for travel is ineligible. Partial travel support from the applicant’s institution or a non-governmental agency does not, however, make the applicant ineligible.

• Mentoring Travel Grants. Applicants for mentoring travel grants may in exceptional cases receive up to two such grants throughout their careers, possibly in successive years; each such grant would require a new proposal and would go through the usual competition.

Presentation of Award. Award winners are notified by email approximately 2 months after the submission deadline.