Biomedical Informatics Travel Policy
The following discussion assumes travel is related to conferences. Please discuss other forms of travel with your research advisor.
Permission to Travel
If the conference has a poster or oral presentation session, students must submit an application. Since these deadlines may be several months before any of the deadlines below, students may need to start thinking about conferences 6-12 months before travel begins.
Students with research advisors must discuss travel support with their advisors first. Apply for travel support from the conference as well. The BMI program will only offer support under these circumstances if the advisor cannot support travel.
Next you will need to discuss your funding needs with the BMI program. Contact the Student Services Officer at least two (2) months ahead of time for domestic conferences or three (3) months ahead of time for international conferences. For NLM-supported trainees, travel funds come from the NLM training grant. The Student Services Officer must contact NIH to obtain permission to spend the funds on international travel. The fiscal year for NIH-travel funds is July 1st - June 30th. See the restrictions on international travel on the Travel Advice page.
For some costs, there is a cap on the amount that BMI will reimburse. As an example, for the AMIA annual conference, BMI will pay the only the early bird registration fee for BMI students who are members of the professional society sponsoring the conference. However, the early bird registration deadline is 3 months or more before the conference.
Once you have consent from your research advisor and BMI, go to the forms page, download all the forms and gather the signatures necessary to release the funds (at the present time, Russ Altman, Larry Fagan and/or your PI depending on the account in question) and submit the completed form to the Student Services Officer.
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