Beyond the Lab: How Travel Funding Moves Graduate Student Success Forward

In this issue, we highlight two scholars whose travel was funded in part by graduate student travel grants: the Carter Travel Award and the Gruener Research Travel Award. The Carter Travel Award received additional support through University of Arizona Giving Day contributions.

Their stories demonstrate how this support assists graduate students to expand their research, build professional networks, and stay connected to the purpose that brought them to graduate school in the first place.

Kelsy Nilles is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience and Pharmacology. She studies how microglia, a dynamic and understudied brain immune cell, interact with the blood-brain barrier to influence recovery and inflammation. When she finally had data ready to present, she set her sights on one goal: attending the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting.

"This was my dream conference. I’d wanted to go to this conference for 12 years. But when I finally had data to present, I didn’t have the funding. [Carter Travel Grant] made it possible."

At the conference, Kelsy presented her research, connected with experts from around the world who study the same protein (TREM2), and received valuable feedback not available on campus. This experience also gave her the chance to step back from the day-to-day details of her work and reconnect with the bigger purpose behind her research.

"It’s easy in grad school to get buried in your own tiny corner of research. Going to this conference reminded me how my work fits into a bigger story."

Why Travel Matters for Graduate Students  

For graduate students like Kelsy, travel is far more than a line item on a CV.  Whether it’s for a conference, fieldwork, or a research site visit, travel is central to developing as a scholar. It builds communication skills, strengthens interdisciplinary collaboration, and opens doors to career-shaping relationships. For many graduate students, it's also the first chance to share their work and connect their ideas to broader conversations in their field.

As the largest international neuroscience conference, attending the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting (SfN) was the culmination of over a decade of aspiration, and a pivotal moment in Kelsy’s scholarly journey only made possible through travel funding support. 

"My lab studies drug delivery to the brain after stroke. I’m looking at how microglia, the brain’s immune cells, interact with the blood-brain barrier and how we can target them to improve stroke outcomes."

When research is this specialized, connecting with the broader scientific community is essential. If few researchers on campus work in the same area, conferences like SfN offer graduate students a valuable opportunity to share their ideas, receive informed feedback, and form connections that are not available on campus.

"The stroke field hasn’t released a new treatment since 1995. There aren’t any therapies that really target the brain itself to support tissue repair. No one else at the University of Arizona, to my knowledge, studies TREM2; this specific protein, in this context. That’s why it was so important for me to go to this conference. Being in a room full of people who are studying the exact same thing was incredible. I learned things that aren’t even published yet. Things I couldn’t have gotten from any paper."

Attending conferences is about more than just presenting a poster or giving a talk. For many graduate students, it’s a chance to reflect on the broader purpose of their research and see how it fits into a larger scientific conversation.

"Hearing people talk about this protein in other contexts helped me step back from my own little niche. It gave me a broader view and made me a more grounded scientist. I study cells in a dish, and sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the people this research is supposed to help. I have my own incurable disease, and I know what it’s like to wonder, ‘is anyone trying to fix this?’ That’s why I came to grad school. To help figure out what’s going wrong and maybe make a difference someday."

Beyond Conferences: Travel That Drives Discovery

Aside from conference attendance, travel funding can also be instrumental in fueling field research and data collection. Just ask Talitha Neesham-McTiernan, a PhD candidate in the Global Change Graduate Interdisciplinary Program who used her Gruener Research Travel Award to conduct fieldwork at an agrivoltaic farm in Colorado.

As part of her dissertation, Talitha is investigating an innovative solution to one of the most pressing challenges facing agriculture today: extreme heat exposure among farm workers. She studies the potential of agrivoltaic systems, which combine solar energy generation with agricultural production. 

"My PhD dissertation investigates agrivoltaics—the integration of solar panels above crops—as a promising approach to heat protection for farmworkers. Understanding this potential is crucial for developing sustainable solutions that protect both agricultural productivity and farmworker wellbeing."

During her travel, Talitha collected real-time environmental data and conducted in-depth interviews with farmworkers, bridging physical science and social science approaches. 

"Beyond physical measurements, understanding heat protection requires investigating how farmworkers themselves experience these environments. These interviews provide crucial insights that cannot be captured through instrumentation alone."

With support from the Gruener Research Travel Award, Talitha was able to fund travel that not only advanced her dissertation but also helped advance solutions that protect vulnerable workers while promoting more sustainable farming systems.

Read more about Talitha’s research and travel experience

Why Travel Funding Matters

Travel is an important career investment for graduate students. It allows them to advance their research, connect with experts in their field, and grow their professional networks. However, the cost of flights, lodging, and registration can easily exceed $1,500 for a single trip, creating a barrier for many. 

That barrier is often higher for students with disabilities, who may need accessible lodging, specialized transportation, or support for the safe transport of mobility devices or other medical equipment. For scholars like Kelsy, these additional costs made attending a pivotal conference like SfN financially out of reach without the support of a travel award.

"As someone with a disability, just getting there required more support. This grant helped make an experience possible that I otherwise couldn’t have afforded."

How Giving Day Makes a Difference

Travel funding is one of the most direct and meaningful ways to support graduate student success. Through Giving Day contributions, the Graduate Center and Graduate College can extend more opportunities to scholars, ensuring that success is not limited by a student’s background or bank account. This is what we mean by our goal for “Success for Every Scholar.” 

Last year, the Graduate College raised $1,950 during Giving Day for the Graduate College Fund for Excellence to support graduate student travel. These donations also supported the Carter Travel Award and the Graduate and Professional Student Council Travel Grant.

Funding graduate student travel helps students go further—literally and figuratively.

“Attending that session reminded me why I’m here. I’m not just studying a protein, I’m studying something that could help someone walk again after a stroke.” –Kelsy Nilles