Congratulations on having your presentation accepted to a conference! Here’s what you need to do to go to the conference (and have your expenses reimbursed).
BASIC RULE: ALL CONFERENCE ATTENDEES MUST SUBMIT A TRAVEL VOUCHER ON SINAICENTRAL BEFORE GOING TO THE CONFERENCE. TALK TO FINANCE CHAIR.
Register for the conference online and coordinate airfare and hotel reservations with fellow attendees to optimize costs.
If you are first author of your presentation and have not presented at another conference this year, apply to MSRO for funding. They can provide 50% of funding, up to $500.
Apply to Student Council for up to $350 (regardless of authorship status) to supplement MSRO funding. More details.
For remaining expenses, apply for reimbursement from EHHOP.
Make a poster! You can use PowerPoint (create a really large slide, e.g. 36 x 48 inches or larger; check conference guidelines) or Adobe Illustrator or another vector drawing app (e.g. AutoDesk Graphic which is $20 on the Mac App Store and very easy to use) . Make everything large: text is best at 32 points or larger. A good test is to print the poster on regular 8.5x11 inch paper and see if it is readable when held in your hands.
Export as PDF and have the poster printed by a professional poster printer such as MakeSigns or the Department of Neuroscience’s Digital Media Center. Save the receipt and reimburse as part of your expenses.
Some important reimbursement tips:
- SAVE YOUR RECEIPTS (both originals and take a picture or scan with your phone)
- It is better to pay by credit card (and use the same one--easier in terms of printing out records for reimbursement)
- For shared services (hotels, cars), do your best to split the costs and not have one person pay for the whole thing, i.e. for hotels, split the bill (this absolutely can be done and if they say they cannot that is not true)--this has been a problem with reimbursement in the past.