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Travel Grant Program

The O'Donnell Brain Institute Travel Grant Program was established to support OBI-affiliated trainees presenting original research at national and international conferences. 

Applications are now open for travel from February 2026 through February 2027.

Eligibility

  • Awardee must be trainee-status within an approved OBI Investigator laboratory. Trainees are defined as Ph.D. student, postdoctoral scientist, resident, or clinical fellow.
  • All trainee applications must include a letter of support from their Principal Investigator or Department Chair.
  • Eligible applicants may receive one travel grant per year.
  • Priority will be given to applicants who do not have available funds from other accounts (e.g. fellowship, sponsored project).

Award Information

  • Each award is up to $2,500 for travel costs.
  • Awardees must be presenting original work at the conference (poster presentation or talk).
  • Travel may be national or international.
  • Funds may be used in combination with departmental funds.
  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis with up to 10 awards total per fiscal year.

Qualifying Conferences

  • Conferences must have a peer-review process for selecting and rejecting presentations.
  • Conference meetings must be regularly scheduled and held by a national or international professional society. Conference meetings may also include meetings with governmental agencies, academic industries, or institutions of higher education.
  • Applicants may not be receiving honorariums, payment, or other funding from the conference panel for attendance.

Application Components

1. Biographical sketches from PI/Co-PI (5 pages per NIH template)
2. Description of conference and letter of acceptance for your presentation (1 page)
3. Mentor support letter (1 page)
4. Budget (Use Excel)
5. Budget justification (1 page)

Grant Administration

The applicant’s primary department is responsible for the administration of grant funds, as awards will be transferred to the applicant’s department. Applying for this funding program is a separate process from requesting university and department approval to travel. Applicants must provide proof of university/department approval before funds may be awarded. All grant expenditures must conform to state and university regulations and approvals.

Contact Information

Mary-Colette Lybrand, MS, CIP, CCRP
Program Manager, Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, UT Southwestern Medical Center
OBIEvents@utsouthwestern.edu

Apply Now

Past Awardees


In 2025, we received 22 applications and granted 8 awards. 

Dhvani "AJ" Jain, Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student, D’Mello Lab
Society for Neuroscience (SfN), San Diego, California, November 16, 2025
“Distilling interpretable sparse trees from sparse data: an information theory approach”

Tiffany Grezmak, Psychiatry Graduate Student, LoBue Lab
National Academy of Neuropsychology, Los Angeles CA, November 5-8, 2025
"Remote mild traumatic brain injury is not associated with worse cognitive and Alzheimer's Disease markers in mild cognitive impairment"

Fnu Sukanya, Neurology Postdoctoral Researcher, Noch Lab
2025 WFNOS and SNO Annual Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, November 19-23, 2025
"N-acetylcysteine induced lactate reprogramming is a targetable metabolic susceptibility in glioblastoma"

Syed Taskeen Rahman, B.S., Radiology Graduate Student, Bowen Lab
Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, and the Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors Symposium, Yokohama, Japan, November 1-8, 2025
"Development and Multi-Radiotracer Evaluation of a Deep Learning Based Internal Carotid Artery Segmentation for PET Input Function Estimation"

Si Cheng, Ph.D., Neurological Surgery Postdoctoral Researcher, Zhongzhen Fu Lab
Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA, November 15-19, 2025
"Acetylcholine modulates theta phase synchronization in prefrontal hippocampal dynamics during human memory formation"

Heidi Pak, Neuroscience Postdoctoral Researcher, Takahashi Lab
Gordon Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference on Chronobiology, Barcelona, Spain, July 5-6, 2025
"Discussion Leader at the 2025 Meeting of Chronobiology"

Parker Bassett, Ph.D. Student, Saelices Lab
American Crystallography Association Annual Meeting, Lombard, Illinois, July 18-22, 2025
"Structural diversity and polymorphism in amyloid fibrils from single organs and single patients with AL Amyloidosis"

Satoshi Ishishita, Neuroscience Postdoctoral Researcher, Pool Lab
2025 United States Association for the Study of Pain Annual Scientific Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, April 29, 2025
"Characterization of the Spinal Projection Neuron Type Map of Somatosensory States"

From October 2023 to August 2024, we received 32 applications and granted 11 awards.

Chad Smith, Ph.D., Research Associate, Monson Lab
Society for Neuroscience, November 2023, Washington, D.C.
"Astrocytic stress response is induced by exposure to astrocyte-binding antibodies expressed by plasmablasts from pediatric patients with acute transverse myelitis"

Samir Ruxmohan, M.D., Neurology Fellow, Ding Lab
American Academy of Neurology, April 2024, Denver
"Improved Neuromonitoring for Critically Ill Patients Using Contextual Data & Cerebrovascular Complications in Takayasu's Arteritis: A Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke Case Report"

Pegah Askari, Graduate Student, Maldjian Lab
Annual Meeting of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, February 2024, Orlando, FL
"Predicting Cognitive Impairment using Resting-State MEG Data and Machine Learning"

Haley Moore, M.D./Ph.D. Student, Lega Lab
4th Annual In Vitro 2D & 3D Neuronal Networks Summit, April 2024, Zurich, Switzerland
"Exploring stimulation-induced gene expression and neuronal dynamics in human temporal cortex slices"

Aksheev Bhambri, Postdoctoral Researcher, Sun Lab
2024 Myelin Gordon Research Seminar, March 2024, Los Angeles
"Genetically Labelled Premyelinating Oligodendrocytes Reveal Multi-Faceted Effect of Neuronal Activity on Oligodendrocyte Differentiation"

Fnu Tahajjul Taufique, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Yamazaki Lab
Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, May 2024, San Juan, Puerto Rico
"Constant Lilght Rescues Circadian Rhythm in Arrhythmic Period 1/2/3 Knockout Mice"

Fatma Ozlem Hokelekli, M.D, Ph.D., Psychiatry Resident, Trivedi Lab
Society of Biological Psychiatry, May 2024, Austin, TX
"Sex Differences in Effort/Cost-Based Decision Making among Depressed Outpatients"

Junyeon Won, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Zhang Lab
North American Artery Meeting, June 2024, Aurora, CO
"Association of Central Arterial Stiffness with Brain White Matter Microstructure Integrity Across the Adult Lifespan"

Raegan Adams, Graduate Student, Bailey Lab
American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, May 2024, Baltimore, MD
"Metabolic and Neuropathological Profiling of SLC13A5 Epilepsy Gene Therapy"

Margherita Tabet, Postdoctoral Researcher, Busch Lab
American Neurological Association (ANA) 149th Annual Meeting Orlando FL, Sept 14-17, 2024
"Cerebral Autoregulation and Neuroinflammation During Pediatric Extracorporeal Life Support"

Hudaisa Fatima, Graduate Student, Cullum Lab
National Academy of Neuropsychology, Austin, TX, November 6-7, 2024
"A Proof-of-concept for the Construct Validity of Cognitive Dispersion: Longitudinal Relationship between Cognitive Dispersion and Preclinical Alzheimer’s Cognitive Composite Scores"

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