S-CAP provides travel grants to students attending academic, professional conferences

Research isn't all about work in the laboratory or classroom. Students must also get acquainted with professional and academic peers and educators and their work, as well as learn to present their own work in front of them. Students are encouraged to attend conferences, but travel and lodging can be expensive.

To help students at The University of New Mexico meet those expenses, the Office of Career Services offers the Student Conference Award Program, or S-CAP, a travel grant designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to obtain funding to attend an academic or professional conference in their field of study.

Cathy Chalk, supervisor of Administrative Support in Career Services, has been coordinating S-CAP for about 20 years.

"The Student Conference Award Program, formerly Undergraduate Conference Award Program, or UCAP, has been around longer than I have been employed at UNM, possibly more than 30 years. It is an opportunity for students to receive travel funds to attend a conference that directly relates to their field of student and benefits the student academically and/or professionally. It is a reimbursement program, so they only receive the funds after they have traveled to their event," Chalk explained.

Ian Hutchinson, a UNM senior from Tijeras, N.M., is among the students who have benefited from the grant. The UNM Office of the Vice President for Research and the Global Education Office (GEO) recently named Hutchinson as a 2024 Globally Engaged Research awardee. He was among the presenters at this year's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Conference (UROC), a professional research conference reserved solely for undergraduates to spotlight their research, explain their ideas, and display what they have to offer in their respective fields and majors.

Hutchinson is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a minor in Honors. His research interests include paleobiology, behavioral ecology, macroevolutionary processes, and microfossils.

He used the S-CAP travel grant to attend the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology where he led a poster presentation and presented a poster.

"The poster described a new microfossil assemblage from the Late Cretaceous Two-Medicine Formation. The details include looking at teeth, scales, and other small fossils from a variety of organisms and results showed an unusual abundance of large vertebrate fossils and limited abundance of semi-aquatic fossils," Hutchinson said.

"The grant aided me in paying for a large portion of the trip's costs in terms of flights, hotel, application costs, transportation, and food," he said. He is currently applying again for the S-CAP travel grant for the same conference to present a different poster.

The funds used for this program are from student fees. The Student Fee Review Board (SFRB) governs the decisions of who gets what funding and how much. Each year Chalk applies to the SFRB in the hopes of receiving funding for the next fiscal year. In recent years S-CAP has received $32,000 each year for this program.

Neither presenting nor participating in research is a pre-requisite to receive this award, she added. The idea was to encourage students to attend conferences and learn, grow, and network in their fields. It's also an opportunity to learn about advancements in their fields of study, learn about research opportunities that they might later choose to pursue, and build connections that may lead to career opportunities.

"We believe, and this is the direct tie that this program has to Career Services, that networking is a vital aspect in both your academic and, ultimately, career pursuits. Attending conferences gives students the opportunity, present on and/or participate research in their fields," Chalk said.

"S-CAP is an amazing supporter of undergraduate research at UNM. Since 2015, S-CAP has supported more than 50 undergraduate researchers in attending professional conferences, including more than 45 who presented their research to colleagues. In addition to the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Conference (UROC), and the many other undergraduate research conferences and events at UNM, S-CAP provides students the opportunity to strengthen their presentation skills while also expanding their professional networks worldwide," said Tim Schroeder, director of the UNM Undergraduate Research, Arts & Design Network (URAD) and the Expanding Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (ECURE) programs.

Find out more about the S-CAP travel grant.