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The National Graduate Student Symposia is an invited event for select PhD students from around the U.S. It is an all-expenses-paid annual event hosted on the St. Jude campus in Memphis, Tennessee, that allows PhD-level graduate students from U.S. institutions to present their work, meet our faculty, and learn about cutting-edge research and facilities at St. Jude.
Students may apply only if they have received an invitation from St. Jude or are nominated by a faculty advisor.
Faculty may select the link below to nominate one (or more) PhD candidate(s) to be invited to apply for the NGSS. Nominations must be received by mid-October in the year prior to the symposium.
Eligibility
- Participation in the NGSS is limited to US citizens and Permanent Residents enrolled in PhD programs at institutions located within the United States at the time of application.
- Participants must not have defended their PhD before the event, but plan to do so within the following year.
- Participants are required to have not committed to a postdoctoral position before the symposia date.
Attendance
Students selected to participate in either the NGSS are required to attend for the entire duration of the symposium. Students will be assigned to an event based upon their research area.
Participants will be required to present their PhD research in both oral and poster format, and there will be opportunities to interact with and meet postdoctoral fellows and St. Jude faculty members.
Travel arrangements for participants will be made by the St. Jude Travel Office per St. Jude travel policies. The NGSS schedules and transportation cannot accommodate companion travel or the inclusion of individuals other than selected participants in symposia events.
Application requirements
Once invited to apply, students will be required to list at least five St. Jude Faculty members with whom they would be interested in meeting during the NGSS or FFRC to discuss their work. A faculty list is available at stjude.org/faculty-mentors.
Students must include a CV and an abstract of the research they would like to present at the NGSS with their application. Only CVs and abstracts submitted as Microsoft Word documents will be accepted.
CV must not exceed four pages in length.
Abstracts are limited to 350 words and must contain the title and list of authors at the top of the Word document (title and authorship lines do not count towards the word limit). Abstracts should not include figures.
Students selected to participate in the NGSS will be required to present a poster on their submitted abstract. The abstract and abstract title submitted with your application will be used to advertise your poster presentation at the NGSS.
A letter of support from their thesis advisor is also required during the application.