Travel: NSF Student Travel Grant for Real World Cryptography (RWC) 2025

This proposal will support travel for about 15 U.S.-based students to attend the 2025 Real World Cryptography (RWC) conference, which will be held in March 2025. Real World Crypto provides a venue for discussion of the latest research, developments, and trends in the field of cryptography, with a focus on helping practitioners understand the current state-of-the-art in cryptographic research and how it can be applied in practice. Students will attend technical paper presentations, poster sessions, and panel discussions to learn about new research findings and trends. Providing support for students to attend RWC will provide knowledge sharing, increased visibility of the students' research (and awareness by the students of others' research), and career development opportunities. The requested funds will allow students who otherwise would not be able to attend will be given the chance to deepen their knowledge of privacy technologies and meet researchers and other students. They will also have opportunities to learn about internships and job openings and to discuss employment and collaboration with more senior members of the field and build their professional networks. The call for applications will be widely distributed through a range of organizations and mailing lists, with the goal of reaching a wide applicant pool from different institutions, disciplines, and backgrounds in order to grow the cryptography research community. Selection criteria include presentation at the conference, documented financial need, and distribution of awards across multiple institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.