Fall 2025 Conference Presentation Awards for Graduate Students

The Graduate College’s Conference Presentation Award program offers funds to assist graduate students giving a presentation at a professional conference (either in-person or online). For in-person conferences, awards will help cover travel expenses. For online conferences, awards will help cover registration fees. No other fees (such as membership fees) or costs (such as printing or meals) are allowable. Awards are available only to those students who are making a presentation at the conference. Students attending a conference without giving a presentation are ineligible.

The Conference Presentation Award program provides a department with funds, in increments of $250 depending on size, and the department may disburse the funds for conference travel or for conference registration fees. Application is by department nomination only. December 17th, 2025 is the anticipated date that funds will become available from the Graduate College.

Eligibility Requirements:

• Conference Presentation Awards are available only to students who will be presenting a paper, poster, or creative work at a professional conference they attend.
• Applicants must be registered and in good academic standing during both the term the application is submitted AND the term during which the conference takes place (exceptions to this are made for summer).
• Applicants may receive only one Conference Presentation Award per academic year.
• Students in non-degree, online, cost-recovery, and self-supporting programs are ineligible.
• Awards are supported by Students for Equal Access to Learning (SEAL) fees, which are part of the Student Initiated Fees. Therefore, applicants must have paid the Student Initiated Fees (currently at ~$82 per semester) in the semester during which they apply and before their nomination for a Conference Presentation Award.
• For fall term awards, the conference must take place anytime from the beginning of the previous summer to the end of the following summer.

Students who are awarded a Conference Presentation Award are required to submit to their department receipts showing all requested expenses. The Graduate College does not require these receipts; however, the department should keep copies of them for audit purposes. Please direct all questions to the Graduate College’s Fellowship Office at gradfellowships@illinois.edu or the Siebel School Awards Team at awardsinfo@cs.illinois.edu.