SMA created the Student Attendance Support Program at APEC 2006. The program reimburses up to $1,000 of attendance expenses for up to 60 students.

By APEC 2012, the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) and the Power Electronics Society (PELS), the other sponsors of APEC, had joined in co-sponsoring this novel (at the time) program. Since then, IEEE has created several travel grant programs (as IEEE calls them) at other conferences.

From an APEC perspective, the SAS program encourages main or first-author students to present their work at APEC rather than a substitute (such as their advisor or another student). This strengthens the conference experience for attendee interaction with first authors.

From the student perspective: the SAS program encourages students to begin a career in power electronics, join the APEC community, and join APEC sponsors such as the PSMA, IEEE IAS, & IEEE PELS. Furthermore, students gain insights from direct questions and input from attendees. Finally, students receive their reimbursements in a timely manner as they simply need to go to the PSMA booth at APEC to submit their expenses and receive their reimbursements on the spot.

The 2026 program got a strong start as the official APEC channels sent a deadline reminder that the deadline would not be extended. As a result, PSMA received a record-breaking 225 raw applications with 193 qualified applicants (about 86% of applicants)! Since roughly 600 students attended APEC 2026, about a third applied for attendance support. The SAS selection committee (which consists of representatives from each sponsor) had a tough job selecting only 60 recipients from this applicant pool. PSMA thanks the sponsor representatives for selecting the recipients in a fair and quick manner.

Students were encouraged to prepare for travel readiness early to avoid withdrawing due to passport issues, visa delays, etc. Nonetheless, seven selected recipients were not actually able to attend APEC at the last minute, so they are not entitled to receive reimbursement. Consequently, the final recipients came from 15 various countries and 50 different universities.

In addition, student applicants were encouraged to join the PSMA Student Mentorship at APEC 2026 program as a mentee (see more details on this program in a separate article in this newsletter). In the end, 20 recipients signed as mentees (roughly 38% of all SAS recipients were mentees, and 61% of all mentees were SAS recipients), so there are still a lot of synergies between the two programs.

Since there is a significant difference in registration rates between IEEE student registration ($450-575) and non-member student registration ($850-1150 = early non-member registration), PSMA encouraged recipients to join IEEE, as student membership is generally less than $50 (depending on the country), so students can stretch their reimbursement allotment. In addition, students were encouraged to attend APEC events, including speaker breakfasts, lunches on the exhibition floor, and the Wednesday night social event.

Most importantly, the PSMA is pleased to recognize the final 53 Student Attendance Support recipients for APEC 2026:

Students with a * by their name also won a best presentation award for their work. Congratulations to all the recipients!

Students receiving support expressed their gratitude and appreciation. Despite the record number of applications the program went smoothly. Students felt the online application process was easy, the instructions were clear and easy to understand, and the reimbursement options were convenient (and quick). The most common advice to future applicants is to apply early.

Looking ahead, the co-sponsors have agreed to increase the amount of support per student for APEC 2027 by 25% to $1,250 while maintaining 60 total recipients! This is the first increase in support funding per student since the program began (with special thanks to Jose Ortiz Gonzalez from the APEC organizing committee for his assistance in getting the other co-sponsors to agree to the increase). Although the three sponsors fund the program equally, PSMA still handles the logistics of running the program.

The Student Attendance Support Program is unique to APEC. Some travel award programs are strictly limited to travel expenses, so registration fees are not covered. Furthermore, no other conference supports up to 60 recipients, which is only about 10% of the student population that attends such a large conference as APEC. This means that students have a much higher probability of receiving attendance support at APEC than at other conferences, encouraging greater student participation. As a co-sponsor of both APEC and the Student Attendance Support Program, PSMA is proud to do its part to make sure that APEC remains the premier power electronics conference globally.

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