dissertation completion grants

Dissertation Completion Fellowships

Dissertation completion fellowships provide advanced doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences with an academic year of support to write and complete their dissertation.

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Eligible students in the humanities and social sciences are guaranteed a dissertation completion fellowship (DCF) between the G4 and G7 years and must apply for the DCF in advance of the dissertation completion year.

Before applying, students should:

• review DCF opportunities offered by Harvard research centers (see below) and search the CARAT database for DCFs offered by non-Harvard agencies
• review dissertation completion fellowships policy
• follow the instructions for dissertation completion fellowships and apply by February 9, 2024, at 11:59 p.m.

Award description and confirmation typically occurs in early May.

While there is no guarantee of a DCF beyond the G7 year, requests will be considered upon recommendation of the faculty advisor.

Instructions for departments can be found on the instructions for dissertation completion fellowships page.

Harvard Research Centers

Other dissertation completion fellowships are available through the Harvard research centers.

• Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History Dissertation Completion Grants
• Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Dissertation Completion Fellowships
• Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellowships in Ethics
• Mahindra Humanities Center Mellon Interdisciplinary Dissertation Completion Fellowship
• Center for European Study Dissertation Completion Fellowship
• Radcliffe Dissertation Completion Fellowships
• Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Canada Program Dissertation Research and Writing Fellowships
• Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Dissertation-Writing Grants

External Dissertation Completion Fellowships 

Search the CARAT database for dissertation completion fellowships offered by non-Harvard agencies.​ Here are a couple of examples:

• American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship
• Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship

Please contact the Academic Programs office with any questions.

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American Fellowships

Funding:  $8,000–$50,000 Opens:  August 1 every year Deadline: November 15 every year EXTENDED Now Accepting Applications through November 30

The American Fellowship program began in 1888, a time when women were discouraged from pursuing an education. It is AAUW’s largest fellowship program and the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States.  

AAUW American Fellowships support women scholars who are pursuing full-time study to complete dissertations, conducting postdoctoral research full time, or preparing research for publication for eight consecutive weeks. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Candidates are evaluated based on scholarly excellence; quality and originality of project design; and active commitment to helping women and girls through service in their communities, professions, or fields of research.  

Dissertation: The purpose of the American Dissertation Fellowship is to offset a scholar’s living expenses while they complete their dissertation. F ellows must use the award for the final year of writing the dissertation. Applicants must have completed all course work, passed all preliminary examinations, and received approval for their research proposals or plans by the preceding November. Students holding fellowships for writing a dissertation in the year prior to the AAUW fellowships year are not eligible. Open to applicants in all fields of study. Scholars engaged in science, technology, engineering , and math fields or those researching gender issues are especially encouraged to apply.  

Postdoctoral: The primary purpose of the American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship is to increase the number of women in tenure-track faculty positions and to promote equity for women in higher education. This fellowship ’s purpose is to assist the candidate in obtaining tenure and further promotions by enabling them to spend a year pursuing independent research. Tenured professors are not eligible. Open to applicants in all fields of study. Scholars engaged in science, technology, engineering , and math fields or those researching gender issues are especially encouraged to apply.  

Publication: The Short-Term Research Publication Grants provide support to scholars to prepare research manuscripts for publication. AAUW’s funding priority is for applicants whose work supports the vision of AAUW: to break through educational and economic barriers so that all women have a fair chance. Time must be available for eight consecutive weeks of final writing and editing in response to issues raised in critical reviews. These fellowships can be for both tenure-track and part-time faculty, and to new and established researchers. The purpose is to assist the candidate in obtaining tenure and other promotions. Tenured professors are not eligible. Open to applicants in all fields of study. Scholars engaged in science, technology, engineering , and math fields or those researching gender issues are especially encouraged to apply.  

Award Amount

Dissertation Fellowship: $25,000

Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship: $50,000

Short-Term Research Publication Grant: $8,000

August 1, 2023 Application opens.

November 15, 2023, by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time Deadline for online submission of application, recommendations, and supporting documents.

April 15, 2024 Notification of decision emailed to all applicants. AAUW is not able to honor requests for earlier notification.

July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 Fellowship year

When a date falls on a weekend or holiday, the date will be observed on the following business day.  

Eligibility

Applicants of all American Fellowships must meet the following criteria:  

• Members of the AAUW Board of Directors, committees, panels, task forces and staff, including current interns, are not eligible to apply for AAUW’s fellowships and grants. A person holding a current award is eligible for election or appointment to boards, committees, panels and task forces.  
• American Fellowship candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.  
• Fellowships are open to women, including people who identify as women, in all fields of study at an accredited institution of higher education. AAUW will make final decisions about what constitutes eligible institutions.  
• Applicants may not apply for another AAUW national fellowship or grant in the same year.  
• Distance learning/online programs: Fellowships support traditional classroom-based courses of study at colleges or universities. This fellowship program does not provide funding for distance learning or online programs or for degrees heavily dependent on distance learning components. Final decisions about what constitutes distance learning under these fellowships will be made by AAUW. AAUW will accept applications from applicants who are temporarily studying remotely due to COVID-19 precautions at their institution.  
• American Fellowships are not open to previous recipients of any AAUW national fellowship or grant (not including branch or local awards or Community Action Grants).

A pplicants of Dissertation Fellowships must also meet the following criteria :  

• The American Dissertation Fellowship must be used for the final year of writing the dissertation. Applicants must have completed all coursework, passed all preliminary exams, and had the dissertation research proposal or plan approved by November 1, 2023 . The doctoral degree/dissertation must be completed between April 1 and June 30, 2025 . Degree conferral must be between April 1 and September 15, 2025 .  
• Dissertation Fellows are not required to study in the U.S.  
• Students already holding a fellowship or grant for the purpose of supporting their final year of writing or completing the dissertation the year before the fellowship year are not eligible to apply for the American Dissertation Fellowship.  
• The Dissertation Fellowship is intended for applicants who are completing their first doctoral degree.  
• Applicants may apply up to two times for a fellowship for the same dissertation project.  

A pplicants of Postdoctoral Fellowships must also meet the following criteria :  

• American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship applicants must hold a Ph.D., Ed.D., D.B.A., M.F.A., J.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.S.W., or M.P.H. at the time of application.  
• Tenured professors are not eligible.  

Applicants of Publication Grants must also meet the following criteria :  

• American Short-Term Research Publication Grant applicants must hold a Ph.D., Ed.D., D.B.A., M.F.A., J.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.S.W., or M.P.H. at the time of application.  
• Tenured professors are not eligible.
• American Short-Term Research Publication Grants are for tenure-track, part-time, and temporary faculty, as well as new and established researchers at universities. Scholars with strong publication records should seek funding elsewhere. Applicants must have time available for eight consecutive weeks of final manuscript preparation. While many recipients, especially full-time faculty members, will use the award s during the summer, recipients may use the funds at any time during the award year. Applicants must demonstrate that the support will result in a reduction of their ongoing work-related activities during the eight-week period .  
• American Short-Term Research Publication Grants are not for preliminary research. Activities undertaken during the grant period can include drafting, editing, or modifying manuscripts; replicating research components; responding to issues raised through critical review; and other initiatives to increase the likelihood of publication.  
• The grantee must be listed as the sole author, senior author, first author, or an author of equivalent significance.  

Selection Criteria and Application Review

The panel meets once a year to review applications for funding. Awards are based on the criteria outlined here. The panel’s recommendations are subject to final approval by AAUW. Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis according to funds available in a given fiscal year.  

To ensure a fair review process, AAUW does not comment on the deliberations of the award panels. AAUW does not provide evaluations of applications. No provisions exist for reconsidering fellowship proposals.

Applications and supporting documents become the sole property of AAUW and will not be returned or held for another year.  

In selecting fellowship recipients, the following criteria will be considered:  

• Applicant’s scholarly excellence.  
• Quality of project design.  
• Originality of project.  
• Scholarly significance of project to the discipline.  
• Feasibility of project and proposed schedule.  
• Qualifications of applicant.  
• Applicant’s commitment to women’s issues in the profession/community.  
• Applicant’s mentoring of other women.  
• Applicant’s teaching experience.  
• Potential of applicant to make a significant contribution to the field.  
• Applicant is from an underrepresented racial/ethnic background.  
• Applicant will be in an underrepresented area of the country and/or type of university other than a top-level research institution during the award year.  
• Financial need.  

The primary criterion for fellowship awards is scholarly excellence. Applications are reviewed by distinguished scholars and should be prepared accordingly.  

American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship and American Short-Term Research Publication Grant: When comparing proposals of equal merit, the review panel will give special consideration to women holding junior academic appointments who are seeking research leave, women who have held the doctorate for at least three years, and women whose educational careers have been interrupted. Preference will also be given to projects that are not simply a revision of the applicant’s doctoral dissertation and applicants whose work supports the vision of AAUW: to break through educational and economic barriers so that all women have a fair chance.  

Regulations

American Fellowships funds are available for:  

• Educational expenses (American Dissertation Fellowship and American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship only).  
• Living expenses.  
• Dependent child care.  
• Travel to professional meetings, conferences, or seminars that does not exceed 10 percent of the fellowship total (American Dissertation Fellowship and American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship only).  

Additionally, American Short-Term Publication Grant funds are available for:  

• Clerical and technical support.  
• Research assistance related to verification (not basic research).  
• Office supplies, postage, copying and related expenses.  
• Journal fees.  

American Fellowships funds are not available for:  

• Purchase of equipment.  
• Indirect costs.  
• Research assistants.  
• Previous expenditures, deficits, or repayment of loans.  
• Publication costs (except for American Short-Term Publication Grants).  
• Institutional (overhead) costs.  
• Tuition for dependent’s education.  
• Tuition for coursework that is in addition to credits required for maintaining full-time status while completing a dissertation.  
• Extended field research (applicable to American Dissertation Fellowships only).  

Additionally, American Short-Term Research Publication Grants funds are not available for:  

• Salary increase.  
• Doctoral dissertation research or writing.  

AAUW regards the acceptance of a fellowship as a contract requiring fulfillment of the following terms:  

• All American Fellowship recipients are required to sign a contract as acceptance of the award. Retain these instructions as they will become part of the fellowship contract if the applicant is awarded a fellowship.  
• An AAUW American Fellow is expected to pursue their project full time during the funding period (July 1–June 30). No partial fellowships are awarded. Fellowships may not be deferred.  
• American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellows and American Short-Term Research Publication Grantees cannot pursue a degree during the award period.  
• Any major changes in plans for the award year must have prior written approval from AAUW.  
• AAUW must be notified promptly of any change in the status of an application resulting from acceptance of another award.  
• Stipends are made payable to fellows, not to institutions.  
• The determination of whether there is a tax obligation associated with the receipt of an AAUW award is the sole responsibility of the applicant. Specific questions regarding income tax matters should be addressed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the applicant’s financial aid office or a personal tax adviser. AAUW cannot provide tax advice. AAUW is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity founded for educational purposes.  

Required Components*

Start the application process by clicking the Apply Now button below to access the application and create an account through our vendor site. Complete all required components in the following tabs.  

• Recommendations: Standardized or form-letter recommendations are discouraged. AAUW does not accept references from dossier services such as Parment or Interfolio.
• Dissertation Fellowship applicants: Applicant must provide two recommendations from the applicant’s advisers, colleagues or others well acquainted with the applicant, their project and their teaching. One of the two recommendations must be from the applicant’s dissertation advisor.
• Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship applicants: Provide two recommendations from the applicant’s advisers, colleagues or others well acquainted with their project or work.
• Short-Term Research Publication Grant applicants: Provide two recommendations from the applicant’s advisers, colleagues or others well acquainted with the applicant, their project/work and their teaching.
• Dissertation Fellowship applicants: Submit transcripts for all graduate work and courses listed in the application. Transcripts must show grades for coursework transferred in. If the transcript shows transfer courses and credits without grades, a transcript from the institution where the courses were taken is required. If you studied at an institution that does not require coursework or provide transcripts, an institutional letter stating that is required.
• Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship and Short-Term Publication Grant applicants: Proof of degree: Submit transcript(s)** or original letter showing proof of a Ph.D., Ed.D., M.F.A., J.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.B.A., D.S.W., or M.P.H. degree.
• Dissertation Fellowship applicants: Dissertation certification form: Submit the form verifying the completion of all required coursework and qualifying examinations for the doctorate and approval of your dissertation research proposal (plan of research) signed by an institutional officer. No substitutions for this form will be accepted.
• Dissertation applicants: If you will conduct your project at an institution other than your own during the fellowship year, submit the form that indicates you have approval from the institution and the authority with whom the work will be done to conduct the research, laboratory or office space, and library privileges during the fellowship year. No substitutions for this form will be accepted. If you will conduct your project at your home institution, no project institution form is needed.
• Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship and Short-Term Publication Grant applicants: Submit the form that indicates you have approval from the proposed institution and the authority with whom the work will be done to conduct the research and have institutional affiliation, laboratory or office space, and library privileges during the fellowship year. No substitutions for this form will be accepted.

*A certified English translation is required for all components provided in a foreign language. Translations must bear a mark of certification or official signature that the translation is true and complete.

**All transcripts provided must include the applicant’s full name, the school’s name, all courses and all grades, as well as any other information requested in in the application instructions.  

See More Fellowship and Grant Opportunities

For questions or technical support from ISTS, our technical consultant, please email [email protected] . Enter AAUW-AF if the website prompts you for a program key. We encourage applicants not to opt out of communications from ISTS, to ensure you receive important communications from AAUW.  

Meet a Recent American Fellow

Sarah Biscarra Dilley ’s research is focused on matrifocal and gender-expansive governance from northern villages of yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini to Mokupuni o Hawai‘i, rooted in shared land and kinship-based epistemology. Her written, visual and material practice is grounded in collaboration across experiences, peoples and place, connecting extractive industries, absent treaties and enclosure to emphasize movement, embodied protocol and possibility. Her aspirations are toward cultural resurgence and the return of land to her families’ stewardship.

Our Alumnae

Ayana Johnson

2010–11 American Fellow and marine biologist, policy expert and conservation strategist. She is the founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv and founder of Urban Ocean Lab.

Melissa Harris-Perry

2001-02 AAUW American Fellow and Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University, a columnist for the Nation, editor-at-large for ZORA, author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America , and former host of The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC.

Kimberly Ennico-Smith

1997-98 AAUW American Fellow and staff scientist with NASA who served as deputy project scientist for NASA’s New Horizons Mission, the historic project responsible for capturing unprecedented photos of Pluto.

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Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowships

This award opportunity is made available through the Ford Foundation Fellowships administered by the Fellowships Office .

Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowships provide one year of support for individuals working to complete a research-based, dissertation-required Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) or Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) degree that will prepare them for the pursuit of a career in academic teaching or research. Practice-oriented degree programs are not eligible for support. The fellowship is intended to support the final year of writing and defense of the dissertation.

Announcements

2023 Predoctoral, Dissertation, and Postdoctoral Fellowship Awardees and Honorable Mentions

Predoctoral, dissertation, and postdoctoral scholars have been awarded fellowships in the 2023 Ford Foundation Fellowships competition administered by the Fellowships Office.

• View the 127 Awardees for 2023
• View the 521 Honorable Mentions for 2023
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Publications

No publications are associated with this project at this time.

No projects are underway at this time.

Description

Scope of the award.

Dissertation Fellowships provide one year of support for individuals working to complete a research-based, dissertation-required Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) or Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) degree that will prepare them for the pursuit of a career in academic teaching or research. Practice-oriented degree programs are not eligible for support. The fellowship is intended to support the final year of writing and defense of the dissertation.  

Award Details

Fellowships can be held at any fully accredited not for profit U.S. institution of higher education offering a Ph.D. or Sc.D. degree in an eligible discipline. A limited number of dissertation fellowships will be awarded for the 2024-2025 academic year and will include these benefits:

• One-year stipend: $28,000 
• An invitation to attend the 2024 Conference of Ford Fellows, a unique national conference of a select group of high-achieving scholars committed to diversifying the professoriate and using diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students
• Access to Ford Fellow Regional Liaisons  (PDF, 132 KB) , a network of former Ford Fellows who have volunteered to provide mentoring and support to current Fellows
• Access to other networking and mentoring resources   
• Application deadline:  December 12, 2023 at 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) 
• Supplementary materials deadline: January 9, 2024 at 5:00 PM EST

Application and supplementary materials deadlines: The online application system will close promptly on the deadlines stated above. All required materials must be successfully submitted online by these deadlines in order for an application to be considered for review. Applicants should take the time zone into account if they or their letter writers will be submitting materials from a different time zone. It is strongly recommended that applicants and letter writers submit their materials well in advance of the deadline. Out of fairness to all applicants, we regret that we cannot consider requests for extensions for any circumstances for anyone (applicants or letter writers) who is unable to successfully submit their materials by the stated deadlines.

• Notification of 2024 awards: March 2024
• Expected fellowship tenure start date: June 1, 2024 (for 12 months) or September 1, 2024 (for 9 or 12 months)  

Eligibility

All applicants must:

• Confirm holding a previous Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship;
• U.S. citizen or U.S. national
• U.S. permanent resident (holder of a Permanent Resident Card)
• Individual granted deferred action status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, 1 Indigenous individual exercising rights associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794, individual granted Temporary Protected Status, asylee, or refugee
• Demonstrate an intent to pursue a career that includes teaching and research at a U.S. institution of higher education; 
• Be enrolled in a research-based Ph.D. or Sc.D. program at a not for profit U.S. institution of higher education.
• Expect to complete the Ph.D. or Sc.D. degree in a period of 9-12 months during the 2024-2025 academic year; 2
• Have completed all departmental and institutional requirements for their degree, except for writing and defense of the dissertation by December 12, 2023;
• Upload a signed Verification of Doctoral Status Form  (PDF, 92 KB) by the January 9, 2023 Supplementary Materials deadline ;
• Provide evidence of superior academic achievement (such as grade point average, class rank, honors, or other designations); and
• Not have already earned a prior doctoral degree at any time, in any field.

Receipt of the fellowship award is conditioned upon each awardee providing satisfactory documentation that they meet all the eligibility requirements.  

Dissertation fellowship awards will not be made for work leading to terminal master’s degrees, the Ed.D. degree, the degrees of Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.) or Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), or professional degrees in such areas as medicine, law, and public health, or for study in joint degree programs such as the M.D./Ph.D., J.D./Ph.D., and M.F.A./Ph.D. This program does not support the Ph.D. portion of a joint/concurrent/articulated program.

[1] Eligibility includes individuals with current status under the DACA Program, as well as individuals whose status may have lapsed but who continue to meet all the USCIS guidelines for DACA. 

[2] Dissertation Fellows are expected to spend the majority of their time working on the writing and defense of the dissertation. Applicants enrolled in a program that requires an internship in addition to completion of a dissertation are not eligible for the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship if they plan to participate in a full-time paid or unpaid internship during the fellowship year . Applicants who undertake internships required for degree completion  after  completion of the dissertation are eligible to apply. On the Eligibility page of the online application, applicants should enter the date they expect to complete all requirements for the dissertation, and in the Proposed Plan essay, they should clarify, for the reviewers’ benefit, the timeline for their dissertation work during the fellowship year and the subsequent requirement for an internship.  

Conditions of the Fellowship

Dissertation Fellows are expected to be enrolled in a full-time program leading to a Ph.D. or Sc.D. degree in an eligible discipline. Dissertation awards are intended to support Fellows who will be spending the majority of their time writing and defending the dissertation during the fellowship year. Participation in full-time paid or unpaid internships or other paid activities, even if required for degree completion, should not be undertaken during the fellowship year.

Those who accept a dissertation fellowship must agree to the stipulations in the Terms of Appointment for Ford Foundation Fellows that accompany the award notification.  

How to Apply

Application process  .

The deadline for online application submissions is December 12, 2023 at 5 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST).

• To ensure a complete application, applicants should carefully follow the  Application Instructions  (PDF, 202 KB) .
• Applicants can also follow step-by-step instructions for navigating the online application (PDF, 435 KB) .
• Applicants will receive a confirmation e-mail once their application has been successfully submitted.  

Required Supplementary Materials

The deadline for the online submission of required supplementary materials is January 9, 2024 at 5 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST).

• Applicants will be able to upload transcripts and the  verification form  (PDF, 92 KB)   only after they have submitted the main portion of their online application . Letter writers will be able to upload letters as soon as they have received the notification link sent by the applicant up until the Supplementary Materials deadline.
• To ensure their application will be considered for review, applicants should carefully follow the instructions for required supplementary materials  (PDF, 168 KB) .
• Applicants may share the instructions for the expected content of letters  (PDF, 171 KB)  with their letter writers. These instructions will also be available to letter writers once they gain access to the online application. Applicants must send request notifications to their letter writers through the online application.
• Applicants will not be required to re-submit their application by the Supplementary Materials deadline. After the deadline has passed, applications will be checked for completeness to determine if they can be forwarded to the review panel.

All application materials become the property of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and will not be returned. Applicants should retain copies of all submitted application materials for their personal records.

APPLY NOW!  

Selection process.

Applications will be evaluated by review panels of distinguished scholars selected by the National Academies. The review panels will use all materials included in the application as the basis for determining the extent to which applicants meet the eligibility requirements and the selection criteria.  

Selection Criteria

The following will be considered in choosing successful applicants: 

• Evidence of superior academic achievement
• Degree of promise of continuing achievement as scholars and teachers 
• Capacity to respond in pedagogically productive ways to the learning needs of students from diverse backgrounds 
• Sustained personal engagement with communities that are underrepresented in the academy and an ability to bring this asset to learning, teaching, and scholarship at the college and university level 
• Likelihood of using the diversity of human experience as an educational resource in teaching and scholarship 
• If applicable, how experience as a member of an underrepresented group through discrimination, inspiration, resilience, etc. may inform participation in the fellowship
• Ford Foundation Fellowships
• Policy and Global Affairs
• Policy and Global Affairs - Fellowship Office

In Progress

Fellowship/Associateship Program

• Fellowships

Fellowships Office

(202) 334-2872

[email protected]

Responsible Staff Officers

• Elizabeth Prescott  

Additional Project Staff

• Leah Probst  
• Wendy Pastore  
• Blain Bekele  
• Melanie Suydam  
• Selam Araia  
• Yemi Tesfaye  

• Professional Development Courses
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• AERA Fellowship Program on the Study of Deeper Learning
• Funded Dissertation Grants
• Funded Research Grants
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• AERA Online Job Board
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• Voices from the Field

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Call for Dissertation Grant Proposals AERA Grants Program Seeks Proposals for Dissertation Grants

Deadline: May 30, 2024

With support from the National Science Foundation, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Grants Program seeks proposals for Dissertation Grants. The AERA Grants Program provides advanced graduate students with research funding and professional development and training. The program supports highly competitive dissertation research using rigorous quantitative methods to examine large-scale, education-related data. The aim of the program is to advance fundamental knowledge of relevance to STEM education policy, foster significant science using education data, promote equity in STEM, and build research capacity in education and learning. Since 1991, this AERA Program has been vital to both research and training at early career stages.   

The Grants Program encourages the use of major data sets from multiple and diverse sources. It emphasizes the advanced statistical analysis of data sets from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other federal agencies. The program also supports studies using large-scale international data systems (e.g., PISA, PIRLS, or TIMMS) that benefit from U.S. federal government support. In addition, statewide longitudinal administrative data systems (SLDS) enhanced through federal grants are also eligible for consideration. The inclusion of federal or state administrative information that further expands the analytic capacity of the research is permissible. The thrust of the analysis needs to be generalizable to a national, state, or population or a subgroup within the sample that the dataset represents.

The Grants Program is open to field-initiated research and welcomes proposals that:

• develop or benefit from advanced statistical or innovative quantitative methods or measures;
• analyze more than one large-scale national or international federally funded data set, or more than one statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS) or incorporate other data enhancements;
• integrate, link, or blend multiple large-scale data sources; or
• undertake replication research of major findings or major studies using large-scale, federally supported or enhanced data.

The Grants Program encourages proposals across the life span and contexts of education and learning of relevance to STEM policy and practice. The research may focus on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to such issues as student achievement in STEM, analysis of STEM education policies, contextual factors in education, educational participation and persistence (pre-kindergarten through graduate school), early childhood education and development, postsecondary education, and the STEM workforce and transitions. Studies that examine issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion across STEM topics and/or for specific racial and ethnic groups, social classes, genders, or persons with disabilities are encouraged.

Applicant Eligibility Dissertation Grants are available for advanced doctoral students and are intended to support the student while analyzing data and writing the doctoral dissertation. Proposals are encouraged from the full range of education research fields and other fields and disciplines engaged in education-related research, including economics, political science, psychology, sociology, demography, statistics, public policy, and psychometrics. Applicants for this one-year, non-renewable award should be advanced doctoral students at the dissertation writing stage, usually the last year of study. Applicants may be U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents enrolled in a doctoral program. Non­U.S. citizens enrolled in a doctoral program at an U.S. institution are also eligible to apply. Underrepresented racial and ethnic minority researchers as well as women, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

Data Set Eligibility The dissertation research project must include the analysis of large-scale data. The data set can originate from one or multiple sources, including (1) federal data bases, (2) federally supported national studies, (3) international data sets supported by federal funds, or (4) statewide longitudinal administrative data systems (SLDS) enhanced through federal grants. Although the emphasis is on large-scale education data sets and systems, other social science and health-related databases that can advance knowledge about education and learning are eligible for consideration.

Many national data resources, including important longitudinal data sets, have been developed or funded by NCES, NSF, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Institutes of Health, or other federal agencies. International datasets such as PISA, PIAAC, TIMMS, and others are supported. If international data sets are used, the study must include U.S. education.

NCES has enhanced and improved SLDS through grants to nearly every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and America Samoa. This federal investment has produced state-level data from pre-K to grade 12, through higher education, and into the workforce. Many SLDS are available for analysis and can be used to address salient issues in education research or linked with other data sets.

Data Set Access The data set(s) of interest must be available for analysis at the time of application. Use of public or restricted-data files is permissible. Prior to receiving funding, students must provide documentation that they have permission to use the data for the research project. In many cases, graduate students will gain access to restricted files through a faculty member or senior scholar.

Data Sharing All data or data-related products produced under the AERA Grants Program must be shared and made available consonant with ethical standards for the conduct of research. Grantees are expected to place article-related data, [1] codebook or coding procedures, algorithms, code, and so forth in an accessible archive at the time of publication. Also, at a reasonable time after completion of the dissertation research, all data or data-related products must be archived at the AERA-ICPSR Data Sharing Repository supported by NSF and located at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. AERA provides guidance to facilitate the data sharing and archiving process.

Dissertation Grant Award

Award Component 1, $27,500 Stipend . AERA will award each grantee up to a $27,500 stipend to study education, teaching, learning, or other education research topics using one or multiple large-scale databases. The funds can be used for research-related expenses such as tuition, living expenses, travel to secure data enclaves or scholarly conferences, books, computer equipment, and other expenses directly related to conducting this research. As part of the proposal, applicants provide a budget that outlines anticipated research-related expenses. AERA encourages cost sharing from universities in the form of tuition assistance, office space, university fees, and other expenses. In accordance with AERA's agreement with NSF, institutions cannot charge overhead or indirect costs to administer the grant funds. In addition to the funding, grantees will be paired with a Governing Board member who will serve as a resource and provide advice and feedback to grantees and monitor grantees’ progress.

Award Component 2, AERA Research Conference. Grantees will participate in an AERA research conference held in Washington, DC. During this 2-day conference grantees will participate in seminar-type sessions on substantive, methodological, and professional issues. Also, they will have the opportunity to network and interact with the Grants Program Governing Board, senior scholars and researchers, other graduate students who use large-scale datasets in their research, and representatives from key federal agencies such as the National Center for Educational Statistics, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. The award will cover all travel and lodging expenses for grantees to participate in the conference.

Award Component 3, AERA Annual Meeting Capstone Research Institute. Each spring AERA holds its Annual Meeting which brings together over 15,000 researchers, scholars, and policy leaders to present their research, share knowledge, and build research capacity through over 2,000 substantive sessions. Grantees will take a data analysis or appropriate methods course while attending the AERA Annual Meeting. The grantees will present their research in an invited poster session along with other graduate students who received dissertation support from AERA and other prestigious fellowship programs. Finally, grantees will participate in a Capstone conference directly after the Annual Meeting that will address issues such as building a research agenda, searching for a faculty appointment, and publishing research. Grantees must include travel and lodging expenses to the Annual Meeting in their budget.

Informational Webinar Applicants are encouraged to watch the informational webinar to learn more about the AERA Grants Program and discuss the application process..

Project Dates AERA is flexible on research project start dates, depending on what is best for the applicant. The earliest date a grant may start is approximately three months following the application deadline. Alternatively, an award start date several months or more after that may be requested.

Funding Restrictions Dissertation Grantees may not accept concurrent grant or fellowship awards from another agency, foundation, institution or the like for the same dissertation project that is funded by the AERA Grants Program. If the awardee is offered more than one major grant or fellowship for the same project for the same time period, in order to accept the AERA Grants Program Dissertation Grant, the other award(s) must be declined. Awardees may accept Research Assistant or Teaching Assistant appointments at their doctoral institutions and may have additional employment.

If the applicant is employed by a contractor of NCES, NSF, other federal agency, state agency, or other entity that provides the dataset proposed for the project, the dissertation research must not be considered part of the applicant's work responsibilities. An additional letter from the applicant's employer is required as part of the application submission, stating that the dissertation project is separate from the applicant's job duties. This letter must be sent electronically by the deadline to [email protected] .

Evaluation Criteria Evaluation criteria include the significance of the research question, the conceptual clarity and potential contribution of the proposal, the relevance to an important STEM education policy issue, the strength of the methodological model and proposed statistical analysis, and the applicant’s relevant research and academic experience. Additionally, the review criteria include the following: What is already known on the issue? How might this project inform STEM education policy? How does the methodology relate specifically to the research question? Does the applicant know the data set? Does the analytic plan fit the question and the data? How does this project promote equity in STEM education and learning? Is the applicant qualified to carry out the proposed study? Reviewers will be members of the AERA Grants Program Governing Board. Due to the large volume of applications received, the AERA Grants Program is unable to provide individual feedback on unfunded proposals.

Reporting Requirements Dissertation Grantees will be required to submit a brief (3-6 pages) progress report midway through the grant period. A final report will be submitted at the end of the grant period. The final report consists of an extended dissertation abstract (3-6 pages), a statement of research dissemination and communication activities and plans (1-3 pages), and the complete approved dissertation. It should be submitted electronically to [email protected] . All reporting requirements and deadlines are outlined in the award letter.

Funding Disbursement Funding will be linked to the approval of the progress report and final report. Grantees will receive one-half of the total award at the beginning of the grant period, one-quarter upon approval of the progress report, and one-quarter upon approval of the final report. Grants are awarded through the grantee’s institution. In accordance with AERA's agreement with NSF, institutions cannot charge overhead or indirect costs to administer the grant funds.

Considerations in the Development of the Proposal Applicants are strongly encouraged to read Estimating Causal Effects: Using Experimental and Observational Designs , by Barbara Schneider, Martin Carnoy, Jeremy Kilpatrick, William H. Schmidt, and Richard J. Shavelson prior to submitting a dissertation grant proposal. Selection bias is a recurring issue during the review process and should be addressed in the proposal.

Applicants should choose research topics that can be supported by the samples and variables contained in the proposed data set(s). Applicants should also be familiar with the User Guides and/or Manuals (e.g., use of design weights and design effects) of the specific data sets. Applicants should be familiar with statistical methods and available computer programs that allow for sophisticated analyses of the selected data.

Applicants should explicitly address the curricular content when it applies. Applicants are encouraged to capitalize on the capacity of large-scale data sets to examine diverse populations, including racial, ethnic, social class, and gender groups. Studies are encouraged that promote or inform diversity, equity, and inclusion for underrepresented population as well as across STEM topics. The proposed topic must have education policy relevance, and the models to be tested must include predictor variables that are manipulable (e.g., course work in mathematics, instructional practices used by teachers, parental involvement). Studies focusing on STEM education policy are strongly encouraged. Studies that model achievement test data should clearly define the achievement construct and identify the kinds of items to be used to operationalize the topic of interest. Also, when planning to use existing sub-scales, the applicant should describe why these sub-scales are appropriate and how they will be applied. Existing sub-scales provided by NCES or other agencies may not be appropriate for the proposed construct.

Dissertation Grant Application Guidelines AERA Grants Program

Application Deadline All applications for the AERA Grants Program must be completed using the AERA online application portal by 11:59pm Pacific time on May 30, 2024 . An applicant may submit only one proposal to the AERA Grants Program for review at any one time. Due to the large volume of applications received, the AERA Program is unable to provide individual feedback on unfunded proposals.

Submission Information Please enter the background information requested in the proposal submission portal. This includes the applicant’s contact and background demographic information. Also, enter the proposal title, amount of funding requested, and the start and end dates of the project.

Dataset(s) used: Name data set(s) used (e.g., ECLS­K, ELS:2002, IPEDS, CCD, AddHealth, SLDS-State, PISA, and so forth). Proposals must include the analysis of at least one large-scale federal, international, or state administrative data system.

Dissertation abstract Enter the abstract of your proposed research project (250 words maximum).

Contribution to the field Briefly describe the potential contributions this research will make to the field of education (250 words maximum). You may cut and paste or type into the text box.

• Statement of how this research advances the current state of knowledge in the field, substantively and/or methodologically
• Theoretical or conceptual framework for the research
• Brief review of relevant research/policy literature
• Research questions, hypotheses to be tested
• Description of methodology including the data set(s) and justification for selecting data file to address research question; any additional or supplemental data sample (e.g., groups used, exclusions to sample, and estimated sample sizes); rationale for variables used; and specification and clarification of variables and analytic techniques
• Data analysis plan and/or statistical model or formulas, appropriately defined
• Brief dissemination plan for this research including proposed conferences to present the findings and potential scholarly journals to publish the research  
• Variables list: A categorized list of the variables from the NCES, NSF, or other data set(s) that will be used in this research project. (2 single-spaced pages maximum)  
• References cited (not part of page limit)  
• Budget . Awards for Dissertation Grants are up to $27,500 for 1­year projects. The budget must include funds to attend the AERA Annual Meeting. The funds can be used for research-related expenses such as tuition, living expenses, travel to secure data enclaves or scholarly conferences, books, computer equipment, and other expenses directly related to conducting this research. AERA encourages cost sharing from universities in the form of tuition assistance, office space, university fees, and other expenses. In accordance with AERA's agreement with NSF, institutions cannot charge overhead or indirect costs to administer the grant funds. There is no specific template for the budget. It may be a simple 2­column format or a more complex spreadsheet. (no page limit)  
• Research and academic employment history
• Relevant graduate courses in statistics and methodology
• Relevant publications and presentations
• Relevant professional affiliations and/or memberships

Please combine items 1-5 as one PDF document and upload on online application.

Letter(s) of support: The letter(s) must be sent separately, by the faculty member. One substantive letter of support is required from the applicant's primary faculty dissertation advisor that includes an indication of the applicant's current progress toward the degree and expected date of completion, and of the student's potential for success in his or her anticipated career path.

If the applicant is from a discipline other than education, a second letter of support from a faculty advisor who has an education research background is also required if the primary faculty advisory does not specialize in education research. Although this second letter should focus mainly on the applicant's qualifications, research experience, and potential, it should also include a brief paragraph on the advisor's own education research experience.

Further Questions Contact George L. Wimberly, Co-Principal Investigator, AERA Grants Program ( [email protected]) or 202-238-3200 if you have questions regarding the application or submission process. NOTE: All awards are contingent upon AERA's receiving continued federal funding.

Visit the AERA Grants Program Website at http://www.aera.net/grantsprogram .

[1] Awardees with access to data under restricted access provisions are expected to archive a detailed specification of the data set so that others can request the same data under the same or similar restricted conditions. 

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Dissertation Completion Fellowships

Types of fellowships, eligibility, selection criteria, award amount, how to apply, application guidelines.

Dissertation Completion Fellowships support final-year doctoral students. These non-service fellowships allow students to focus exclusively on their research and writing without service obligations. Fellows are expected to defend their dissertation by the end of the academic year.

Submit Application »

General Dissertation Completion Fellowships

• Non-service fellowship
• Supports dissertation research and writing

Royster Society of Fellows (SOF) Dissertation Completion Fellowships

• Supports interdisciplinary learning and engagement
• Opportunities for mentoring, leadership, and professional development

Royster SOF Dissertation Completion Fellowships are endowed through the generous gifts of many friends of the University, most notably Dr. Thomas S. and Mrs. Caroline Royster Jr.

Royster SOF Special Purpose Dissertation Completion Fellowships:

• Membership in the Royster Society of Fellows
• Includes the Jessie Ball duPont Fellowship for Adolescent Studies

Submit only one application. Select the fellowship(s) you are interested in being considered for on the application form and submit the required supporting materials as appropriate. You will be considered for all fellowships that you select on your application.

Eligibility criteria apply to all Dissertation Completion Fellowships. You may not combine the Dissertation Completion Fellowship with other funding without permission from The Graduate School.

You are eligible if:

• You are a fully-enrolled, degree-seeking doctoral student in a residential program administered by The Graduate School.
• You are engaged full-time with writing your dissertation.
• You are able to complete your dissertation within the fellowship term.

Royster SOF 5-Year Fellows are NOT eligible to apply for continued support through a Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

Before applying, you must:

• Complete course requirements
• Pass written and oral preliminary exams
• Have your Dissertation Prospectus formally approved

You cannot apply for both a Dissertation Completion Fellowship and an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship at the same time.

Your application will be reviewed according to the following criteria:

• You have a strong graduate academic record.
• Your application materials are understandable to a general audience outside of your field.
• Your research design is clearly outlined and appropriate.
• Your research will contribute to and advance the scholarship within your field.
• There is confidence you will be able to complete your dissertation by the end of the fellowship term.
• Your program has minimal resources to support you during the fellowship term.
• You will be an involved and contributing member of the Royster Society of Fellows (for Royster SOF applicants only).

View an in-depth description of the review and selection process.

The fellowship provides a stipend, tuition, fees, and health insurance for one academic year (fall and spring semesters only). Royster SOF fellowships may also provide funds for professional travel.

Depending on funding, this award may change from year to year.

Each program may nominate up to three students for consideration.

Deadline The nomination deadline each year is in late February . -->

Check with your department for an internal deadline. You must submit your application early enough for your department to submit their nomination to The Graduate School by the nomination deadline. Deadlines are posted on the funding deadlines calendar.

• View Frequently Asked Questions about the online award application .
• Prepare an abstract, research description, research workplan, statement of research significance, and curriculum vitae . If appropriate, prepare a Royster SOF interest statement . Arrange for a letter of recommendation from your dissertation advisor. Be sure to follow the application guidelines .
• Before submitting your application, we suggest you get feedback on your materials from a person outside of your field.
• Submit your materials to The Graduate School Award Online Application .
• Once you submit your application, your recommender will receive an email notice to submit a letter of recommendation through the online system.
• Once your letter of recommendation is submitted, the fellowship and award approver(s) for your department will receive an email notifying them that your application is eligible for nomination.
• Your department must nominate you to The Graduate School by the deadline .
• We will notify awardees in April.

We will not consider your application if you exceed any of the page limits and/or you do not follow the proper format.

In addition to the online application, a complete application includes the following:

Format: No more than ½ page. Double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, numbered pages, your name on each page.

• Briefly summarize your research

Research Description

Briefly describe your dissertation research and your progress toward completion.

Address your research description to an audience of intelligent reviewers who may not be familiar with your field. Clearly explain the importance of your research to a lay audience. Do not use jargon or technical, field-specific terminology.

Format: No more than 3 pages. Double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, numbered pages, your name on each page.

Depending on your field of study, include:

• A summary of key literature
• General concepts
• Frame of reference for your study
• Your research questions
• Description of the data or other materials which will be/have been collected and analyzed
• Methods of collection and analysis
• Design considerations
• Description of any necessary approvals, such as Human Subjects Review

Research Progress, Work Plan, and Timetable:

Format: No more than 1 page. Double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, numbered pages, your name on each page.

• Describe your research progress to date and your planned sequence of tasks to be completed, with estimated timetable.

Significance of your Research:

• Explain the significance of your research to your field of study

Curriculum Vitae

Format: No more than 2 pages. 12-point font, 1-inch margins, numbered pages, and your name on each page.

• Include recent professional activities, awards, honors, courses you have taught, and research publications/presentations.
• Departmental funding received
• External funding (please note if received or pending)
• Because University funding is limited, we encourage you to apply for external funding, and such efforts will be viewed positively by the reviewers.

Citations (optional):

• May be included for important references
• Can be either footnotes or endnotes
• Can be single-spaced
• Must be within the three-page limit of the Research Description

Royster Society of Fellows Interest Statement:

*Required only if you are interested in being considered for the Royster Society of Fellows*

• Include a statement addressing your interest and ability to contribute as an active member of the Society of Fellows.

Letter of Recommendation from your Dissertation Advisor

Indicate the email address of your recommender in your application. Please note that only a single recommendation letter will be accepted. If you have joint advisors, they must submit a joint letter of recommendation.

Once you submit your application, your advisor will receive an email notice to submit the letter of recommendation. We can only accept letters of recommendation through the online system. Recommenders cannot submit letters directly to The Graduate School or to your department.

Instructions for recommenders: Each letter of recommendation should be no more than 4,000 characters (spaces included), which is approximately 600 words or one single-spaced page.

Address the letter of recommendation “To the Fellowship Committee.” Include:

• The quality of the student's research
• A rating of the student’s overall ability and potential based on the your knowledge of other students in the field
• The likelihood that the student will complete the dissertation during the award period
• The likely contributions of the student's research to the field
• Jessie Ball duPont Fellowship for Adolescent Studies

Graduate School Fellowships Office [email protected]

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Dissertation Completion Grants

• Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Grants

The CISSR Dissertation Completion Grant provides funding and office space for doctoral students in the final year of the dissertation. CISSR supports doctoral research on international, transnational, and global questions. Dissertation fellows are expected to engage with others at CISSR and contribute to intellectual life of the Center. Fellows are asked to acknowledge CISSR support in all related publications and submit an end-of-year report.

• Eligibility: University of Chicago doctoral candidates in the Division of Social Sciences who plan to defend the dissertation in the coming academic year are eligible.
• Support: the award is a residential fellowship, in which fellows are provided shared office space in Pick Hall 102 and a $5,000 research allowance that can be used for travel, computing, books, or conference costs.

The application portal will open  February 6, 2024  and close on  March 31, 2024 . 

Requirements

• Candidate’s CV
• Cover Letter (maximum of 1000 words)
• Dissertation Précis (maximum 2000 words)

Applications

Apply for the CISSR Dissertation Fellowship

Deadline to submit applications:  March 31, 2024 at 11:59 PM (CT)

For questions, please contact CISSR at [email protected] .

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Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Completion Grants

Program summary.

The Doctoral Dissertation Completion Grant program provides both funding and intensive mentoring to doctoral candidates who are within six months of completing their dissertations. It is designed to enable candidates to focus full time on the writing of their dissertations, improving the quality of the dissertation and shortening the time required to complete the doctoral degree.

Eligibility

• This grant is for students who have demonstrated difficulties in completing the dissertation and would benefit from the intensive mentoring and the six months dedicated to writing that are provided by this program.
• Grants are available to doctoral candidates (ABD) who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents in any field of study.
• To be eligible for a grant, students must have collected all data, completed all major research, and be in their final year of dissertation writing and must have completed all course requirements, as well as preliminary written and oral exams.
• Eligibility is limited to those who have the potential for completing the dissertation within the 6-month grant period.
• Grant recipients may not simultaneously hold assistantships or be engaged in outside employment during the tenure of their awards.

The student’s committee chair must be prepared to participate fully in this program and do all he or she can to expedite the student’s progress, including meeting with the student frequently and returning drafts in a timely manner.

Program Requirements

As grantees, the students must agree to:

• Attend all biweekly small group writing meetings
•  Read and comment on three (3) other group members’ drafts and share feedback at the meetings
• Attend all regularly scheduled counseling center-facilitated support group meetings with other program participants
• Reach out to meet individually with the designated writing coaches as needed
• Actively support other grantees in meeting the shared goal of completing their dissertations

Participants must participate in all meetings in person, rather than virtually. Students’ progress towards completion of the dissertation, as well as the extent to which they are participating in all program activities, will be continually evaluated. Should a student not be making satisfactory progress and/or participating in program activities, the grant may be terminated.

A total of 16 grants will be awarded to doctoral candidates in 2024-2025. Eight awards will be made for the period July 1 to December 31, 2024, and another eight awards made for the period January 1 to June 30, 2025. Students will receive a stipend in the amount of $10,000 during their grant period, which will be disbursed in monthly installments. In addition to the stipend, health insurance and tuition will be covered by the grant.

Application Process

Students may be nominated for only one grant period. The Graduate School will send a call for nomination to the Directors of Graduate Programs for the grant. For more information about the grant, please contact Dr. David Shafer in the Graduate School via e-mail at [email protected] .

Application Deadlines and Review

Applications will be reviewed by a committee appointed by the Graduate School. Grant periods for 2024-25 are as follows: July 1 to December 31, 2024, and January 1 to June 30, 2025. The deadline for receipt of nominations for the first grant period is May 17, 2024, and for the second grant period is October 18, 2024. Awards will be announced by June 2024 and November 2024, respectively.

For further information, please contact Dr. David Shafer, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, at 919-515-4462 or via e-mail at [email protected] .

Dissertation Completion Grants

Dissertation Completion Grants are awarded to doctoral students on a competitive basis. The grant is to help support students enrolled in a doctoral program at Illinois State to complete their dissertation and graduate from their program within two years.

View the past Dissertation Completion Grants Award Winners

2024 Award Winners

Tsung-pei chen.

Mennonite College of Nursing Dissertation Committee Chair:

Long-haul truck drivers face unique healthcare challenges due to the demanding nature of their work, which often involves long hours of driving, irregular schedules, and limited access to healthcare services. These challenges contribute to a range of health issues, including obesity, sleep disorders, mental health issues, and chronic conditions. There is a need for innovative interventions that can be delivered remotely and accommodate their lifestyle on the road. Telephone health coaching has emerged as a promising approach to provide personalized support, education, and motivation to individuals remotely. This project aims to investigate the impact of telephone health coaching on the weight change and overall health-related quality of life of long-haul truck drivers. By exploring the effectiveness of telephone health coaching in this specific population, the project seeks to contribute to the development of tailored interventions addressing the unique healthcare needs of long-haul truck drivers and ultimately enhance their overall health and quality of life.

Lourdes Concepcion-Caban

Department of Psychology Dissertation Committee Chair: Dr. Brea Banks

Racial microaggressions, often unintentional discriminatory behaviors or comments (Sue et al., 2007), have profound consequences on the sense of belonging of those who experience them (Sue, 2010). The link between campus climate and racial microaggressions underscores the role of the college environment (Sanchez, 2019). For Black Latiné college students, ethnic identity development can be particularly challenging due to the intersectionality of identities and the influence of colorism—a preference for lighter skin tones within racial or ethnic groups (Hunter, 2007). Research has shown that skin tone influences various life outcomes, including education (Hunter, 2013). In higher education, there is a notable gap in understanding the experiences of Black Latiné students (Sanchez, 2019). Using survey-based methods, I will examine the relations between racial microaggressions, campus climate, and sense of belonging among Black Latiné college students. I hypothesize that greater exposure to racial microaggressions will be associated with lower perceptions of school climate and a lower sense of belonging. Additionally, I predict that racial centrality and colorism will moderate these relations, making the impact more significant for those who endorse higher racial centrality or lower colorism ratings.

Berenice Contreras

Ableist microaggressions perpetuate and normalize everyday forms of discrimination enacted towards individuals holding dis/abilities (Annamma et al., 2013). Graduate students with dis/abilities have expressed experiencing frequent and harmful discriminatory practices in fieldwork settings (Lund et al., 2014; Lund et al., 2016). Experiences of microaggressions in supervision have a negative impact on the supervisory relationship (Constantine & Sue, 2007), which contributes to supervisee outcomes such as perceptions of stress, burnout, self-efficacy, disclosure, and client outcomes (Hiebler-Ragger et al., 2021). Furthermore, perceptions of burnout and counseling self-efficacy also contribute to client outcomes and clinical competency development (Hiebler-Ragger et al., 2021). Using survey-based methods, I will assess the impact of ableist microaggressions on the supervisory relationship and perceptions of burnout and self-efficacy among mental health service graduate students who are engaged in supervision for practicum, internship, or postdoctoral work. I hypothesize that exposure to ableist microaggressions will contribute to perceptions of burnout and counseling self-efficacy and that the supervisory relationship will moderate these relations.

Teresa Finegan

Mennonite College of Nursing Capstone Committee Chair:

Pediatric obesity has been identified as a priority health issue both nationally and locally (Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, 2021; McLean, 2023). “Partnering with After-school Programs for Physical Activity and Nutrition Promotion” is a quality improvement scholarly project aimed at addressing pediatric obesity through after-school programming that promotes physical activity and nutrition. The “Healthy Kids Out of School” curriculum will be implemented for elementary-aged students at a Boys and Girls Club (BGC) of Bloomington-Normal. The curriculum consists of seven weekly sessions which include tasting fruits and vegetables, understanding the difference between treat foods and fuel foods, learning the difference between light, moderate, and vigorous activity, creating activity plans, and understanding the importance of water and reduction of sugary beverages (“Healthy Kids,” 2017). The use of this curriculum during the already established, targeted programming time of Boys and Girls Club, is intended to increase students’ physical activity during the after-school time and prepare them to make healthy dietary choices. The effectiveness of this programming change will be evaluated by measuring students’ readiness to eat fruit and vegetables, perceived benefit of eating fruit and vegetables, vital signs, and body mass index (BMI) before and after curriculum implementation.

Shelley Hutchison

Department of Mathematics Dissertation Committee Chair:

Math anxiety presents an obstacle to reversing the declining trend in the number of students in the United States entering STEM fields. However, no research to date has attempted to help college students simultaneously alleviate both Learning Math Anxiety (LMA) and Math Evaluation Anxiety (MEA), the two correlated components of math anxiety that appear to require different approaches to address them. In this study entitled Math Anxiety and College Students, I will use a survey to measure math anxiety and growth mindset and to explore patterns in student experiences with math anxiety. I will offer a workshop with tools to help empower students to manage their math anxiety and improve their mathematical experiences. I will also interview select workshop participants to gain deeper understanding of their experiences with math anxiety and how the workshop changed their experiences.

Lisette Munoz

Microaggressions are subtle, often unintentional acts or comments that convey prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s identity. Individuals with a minoritized identity are often the victims of racial-ethnic microaggressions, a form of everyday racism and discrimination. Take for example, the growth of immigration which has generated anti-immigrant sentiments and microaggressions (Sissoko and Nadal, 2021). When Latiné adolescents experience microaggressions, they may be left with an increased awareness of discrimination, a negative impact on emotional well-being and academic performance, and feeling socially excluded or isolated (Ayón & Philbin, 2018; Cervantes, Ullrich, & Matthews, 2018; Gándara & Ee, 2018). Using survey-based methods, I will examine the impact of racial-ethnic microaggressions on Latiné adolescents. I predict that exposure to racial-ethnic microaggressions will be associated with negative outcomes to mental health and academics. I also hypothesize that the significance of these relations will be moderated by ethnic-racial centrality.

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• " alt="dissertation completion grants" target="_self"> Committee on Dissertation Completion Fellowships

isa Dissertation Completion Fellowship

The International Studies Association (ISA) invites applications for a new graduate student fellowship for 2024-2025. This award is targeted at students in the later stages of their PhD program (typically the final 2 years). The fellowship is intended help students offset the costs incurred as a result of research and writing activities necessary for the successful completion of the dissertation. The ISA Dissertation Completion Fellowship is open to applicants from across the social sciences and humanities working in the broad field of International Studies.

While the fellowship is open to all eligible graduate student members of ISA, the committee particularly encourages applications from groups, genders, and nationalities that have been historically under-represented in the field of International Studies. Applicants may request up to $5000 to cover expenses related to the costs of carrying out the final stages of dissertation research and writing. It is the committee’s sole discretion to award lesser amounts than requested, as they deem appropriate. Preference will be given to students without access to other sources of funding to assist with dissertation completion.

Funds may be used only to support dissertation completion; however, the committee takes a broad interpretation of such expenses. Examples of activities that could receive funding include (but are not limited to): transcription, short-term travel for additional field research, archival research costs, survey costs, interview costs, translation costs, copy-editing or proofreading. Living expenses, such as rent and child-care may be considered acceptable expenses, particularly if they can reduce the need to teach or take on other work to allow the proposer concentrated time for dissertation completion. The funds may not be used for payment of tuition. The applicant should make clear in their proposal how the specified activity or resource for which funding is sought will assist in the successful completion of their dissertation.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be members of ISA to apply and must maintain their membership during their fellowship year.
• Applicants must be doctoral candidates or the equivalent by the time the award is received. Applicants may apply before achieving candidacy, but they cannot receive funds without proof of candidacy or equivalent confirmation of permission to proceed to PhD thesis/dissertation.
• Applicants must be working on a topic in the international studies field.
• Preference will be given to applicants from underrepresented groups within ISA.
• The committee will prioritize proposals from applicants who are unable to acquire resources to complete their project from other sources. Applicants should identify all current sources of funding and clearly identify funding shortfalls.
• All funds must be expended in a single fiscal year (running July 1 to June 30).
• Awardees must submit a 500-word final report to the committee chair that details how the funding supported their dissertation completion by 60 days after the end of the fiscal year (September 1).
• The committee reserves the right to redistribute funds to other applicants at their sole discretion in such cases where additional funding has been received since acceptance.

Application Materials

Students must submit the following for consideration:

• A 1000-1500 word proposal laying out the dissertation project.
• A one-page statement detailing all financial support received through the PhD program, including institutional and other sources, such as granting agencies. This should also include a statement of financial need. At the time of disbursement of funds, a student must disclose any further funding received after the time of acceptance.
• A one-page narrative budget detailing the different kinds of expenses foreseen, and justifying how funding for these expenses will advance dissertation completion.
• A current CV.
• A letter of recommendation from the student’s dissertation major advisor, which should be submitted separately with the applicant's name in the subject line. Advisors are asked to comment on the student’s financial need in their letters.
• Proposals are due by September 1 each year and awards start on July 1 of the following year.

Submission Process & Deadline

Applications open on July 1, 2023 and should be submitted directly to the ISA Dissertation Completion Fellowship Committee at [email protected] by September 1, 2023 . The applicant's last name should be clearly specified in the subject heading. Do not submit any application materials before July 1st .

Any questions about the application process, or the Fellowship more broadly, should be directed to [email protected] .

Committee Members

Melody Fonseca (University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras) - Chair Jessica Auchter (Université Laval) Arjun Chowdhury (University of British Columbia) Stéphanie Martel (Queen's University) Ida Bastiaens (Fordham University)

ISA Membership Required

You are not an ISA member or are not logged in to your ISAnet account. Your ISA membership must be current and in good standing to apply for this fellowship.

Join or Renew

All application materials must be submitted electronically to [email protected] on or before September 1, 2023 .

Questions? Contact Committee Chair Melody Fonseca .

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Friday, May 17, 2024

2024 Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Completion Fellows Announced

Aseees congratulates the 2024 cohen-tucker dissertation completion fellows..

Michael Corsi History The Ohio State University

“El Dorado on the Rocks: The Ural Mountains and the Production of Scientific Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Russia” 

My dissertation argues that the Russian empire—its scholars, institutions, and generous funding—was instrumental to the process of global scientific-knowledge production. It takes one part of the Russian empire—the Ural Mountains—as demonstrative of the influence Russia had over nineteenth-century scientific thought. The Urals’ contributions to nineteenth-century science included, among other things, discovery of the first indigenous European diamonds, development of new theories regarding the mineralogical composition of the planet, identification of the Permian geological period, and characterization of global weather systems and biodiversity. Discoveries such as these filled gaps in the scholarly understandings of the time and contributed to some of the most important scientific publications of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, my dissertation also examines intra-imperial networks alongside inter-imperial ones. It traces the ways in which Urals scientists collaborated with other experts and scientific institutions within the Russian empire, thereby demonstrating the contributions of this region to the growth of imperial-era science.

Jessica Ginocchio English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

“Intersecting Worlds: Animal Consciousness, Reality, and Imagination in Eastern European Fiction” 

“Intersecting Worlds” examines the integration of animal minds into the narrative fabric of primarily Russian fiction across several epochs. From Lev Tolstoy’s war horses to Andrei Platonov’s blacksmith bear, animal points-of-view are used by many of Russia’s most prominent writers, ranging in technique from first-person animal narrators to animals as focal characters within larger narrative frameworks. Structured around three chapters and an epilogue, the project uses careful close readings to characterize representations of animal minds and contextualize them within literary aesthetics, contemporaneous scientific thought, and socio-political conditions. Spanning the period from 1865 until 1930, the central chapters encapsulate an era marked by profound intellectual, scientific, and socio-political shifts. In works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, and Platonov, we can see the evolution of realism to modernism to early Soviet experimentation. A final epilogue examines the afterlife of these tendencies in the work of contemporary and postmodern writers from both Russia and Ukraine, including Viktor Pelevin, Tatyana Tolstaya, Linor Goralik, Victoria Amelina, and Andrei Kurkov. The dissertation seeks to answer fundamental questions about human-animal relationships, perceptions of animality, growing ecological consciousness, and the nature of reality itself. While it contributes to the growing field of scholarship interested in animals and environment Russian literary studies, though its specific interventions to marry the concerns of animal studies with narrative theory and cognitive literary studies. Ultimately, I hope to show that animals are not a niche concern, but a central one, and the project of imagining and narrating animal consciousness is fundamental to the study of narrative, theories of consciousness, and understandings of what it means to be human, to be alive, and to exist in the world. 

Luke Jeske History University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

“Faith, Nation, and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Russian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land” 

Throughout the nineteenth century, Russian Orthodox Christians made pilgrimage to Ottoman Palestine, or the Holy Land, a vital and dynamic part of religious and national life. Tens of thousands made the journey, relying on patchwork support systems to realize their dreams of walking in Jesus’ footsteps. Many considered the journey itself a manifestation of personal and collective piety, an act rewarded by God and capable of knitting together thousands of compatriots shuffling toward Jerusalem. Sharing a common destination, Russians diverged on how to practice and interpret pilgrimage. Whereas champions of imperialism stressed the projection of geopolitical power, others emphasized neutral piety. Some, mostly peasants, struck out on their own, embracing apocrypha and heterodox rituals while avoiding Russian officials. I argue that examining these developments in pilgrimage enables us to better understand the broader modernization of Russian Orthodox Christian religiosity, by which I mean the adaptation of religion to accommodate the myriad technological, social, cultural, and legal changes unfolding over the century. While scholars have produced insightful scholarship on various aspects of this religious revitalization, I am one of the first to examine it in the trans-imperial context of pilgrimage and thereby expose Orthodoxy’s tremendous capacity to mobilize the Tsar’s subjects. Drawing on travel memoirs, periodicals, and published archival materials generated around pilgrimage, I shed new light on the religious groundings of Russian ethno-nationalism and imperialism. 

Weronika Malek-Lubawski  Art History University of Southern California 

“Between Moscow and Paris: Łódź and the Transnational Avant-garde Network”  

My dissertation reconstructs the artistic network between Russia and Western urban centers through the activities of artists connected to Łódź, Poland. I study Russian-German sculptor Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951), Polish painter and art theoretician Władysław Strzemiński (1893-1952), and Polish-Jewish painter and designer Henryk Berlewi (1894-1967), who were all crucial in facilitating international contacts and institutional collaborations between the avant-garde movements. Kobro and Strzemiński moved to Poland from Russia in 1921 and were the first artists to share and implement the ideas of revolutionary avant-garde there. Berlewi radically changed his art upon his encounter with Suprematism and carried this influence West after moving from Poland to Berlin and Paris. Strzemiński, Kobro, and Berlewi maintained a lifelong commitment to abstraction, that was reflected not only in their artworks, but also through self-publishing, teaching, and involvement in organizing collections and archives of contemporary art. I will highlight how these artists drew on the artistic discourse and institutional models that emerged during the Russian Revolution to re-imagine and implement avant-garde ideas in their new locations and contexts. In my argument, studying this artistic mobility allows us to broaden and de-center the histories of artists who were directly or indirectly influenced by the revolutionary avant-garde and departed from it to develop their individual art theories like Unism or Mechano-Faktura. My research draws on museum collections, primary sources, memoirs, and institutional histories. I also consider the impact of archival gaps and the Cold War on the existing historiography. The temporal scope of my dissertation will focus on 1921-1939, but in my last chapter, I will analyze Kobro’s, Strzemiński’s, and Berlewi’s legacy in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Alexandra Noi History University of California, Santa Barbara

“From Ape to New Socialist Man: Soviet and Chinese Forced Labor Camps as Laboratories of Carceral Eugenics” 

My dissertation is a comparative intellectual and social history of forced labor and reeducation in the Soviet Union and China. I study the ideas of human nature and practices of its transformation through the lens of incarceration. I conceptualize Soviet Gulag and Chinese Laogai forced labor camps as socialist scientific projects of molding humans and nature rooted in ideas of plasticity in the natural and social sciences of the early and mid–twentieth century. In the Soviet Union, those were Marxist ideas of the value of labor in the evolutionary transition “from ape to man,” as Friedrich Engels wrote, the theory of behavioral conditioning of the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, and the pedagogical methods of the Soviet Ukrainian educator Anton Makarenko. In China, social engineering was an intellectual fusion of indigenous theories of moral rehabilitation, Marxist and Leninist thought, Mao Zedong’s original contributions, and Soviet penal and educational experiments. I explore how in both countries the institutions and practices of forced labor were devised as a means to achieve revolutionary ends—the concurrent goals of modernizing the old “backward” society and economy, remaking people into new socialist citizens, and transforming the natural environment. 

Nicholas Seay   History The Ohio State University 

“Cotton Modernity: Agricultural Labor, Environment, and Materialism in Soviet Tajikistan, 1945-1991″ 

My dissertation explores the technocratic intensification of cotton monoculture in post-WWII Soviet-Tajikistan, which in turn was used to increase the USSR’s industrial-use cotton supply and as exports on the global market. I argue that this intensification produced a series of crises in environmental protection and allocation of labor resources, prompting reform-minded scientists and state agency employees to respond with several technocratic responses that addressed isolated problems, but fell short of directly attacking the monoculture itself, a non-negotiable feature of relations between Moscow and Central Asian Republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. To increase the yearly harvests of raw cotton, planners and collective farms made production more efficient through rational use of water resources, irrigating previously uncultivated lands, new seed selection strategies, and the production and application of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. By utilizing an environmental and materialist approach and analyzing how state officials responded to these crises, my research shows how the case of Tajikistan’s cotton production speaks to important north-south dynamics within the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Soviet “empire” and how the case of Soviet cotton fits within global economic and environmental trends of the late-20th century. 

John Webley Slavic Languages and Literature Yale University

“Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” 

Ink, Paint, and Blood examines Russian depictions of India created during the so-called Great Game, the rivalry between Britain and Russia for dominance in Asia. As a framework for understanding history, the Great Game (or Tournament of Shadows in Russian) reduces the complex, multipolar politicking between Europe and Asia down to a sensational story of spies and soldiers clashing on the Roof of the World. Nonetheless, scholars have demonstrated how this rivalry emerged as a dominant theme in Victorian media—even before the term ‘Great Game’ entered popular usage. Far less attention has been paid to how Russia created, imagined, and responded to this rivalry. My work elucidates the dominant concerns that emerged in Russia’s “Great Game” media—mapping, border disputes, espionage, surveillance, political upheaval, and trade—and shows how these themes adhered repetitive aesthetic dimensions. I achieve this through a trans-medial approach, which brings together travelogues, architecture, painting, poetry, material culture, and ballet from Russia, Britain, and India. By focusing on Russian depictions of India, my work shows how the discourse of the Great Game enabled Russians to articulate their own imperial aesthetic through comparison, mimicry, and differentiation from the British. As Russians retraced the journeys made by British explorers, spies, conquerors, and artists, they used their own creative practices to inspect British imperial culture and its forms. In drawing attention to both the narrative and formal aspects of the Great Game, my project reveals the broader impact that this rivalry had on shaping Russian imperial ideology and aesthetics. 

Yacov Zohn History University of Wisconsin-Madison  

“Tactical Representation: Political Goals in the Soviet National Soccer Team (1952-1972)” 

My dissertation probes the fractured political nature of soccer in the Soviet Union through the lens of the Soviet national soccer team from the team’s official genesis in 1952 to the end of its “golden era” in 1972. The sport featured a complex representation of governmental organizations, industries, politicians, and sports administrators who actively intervened in sporting affairs, vying for power and influence. My research explores institutions, individuals, and empire to investigate the political complexities and divides that festered in and around the Soviet soccer team in the struggle to shape its image as an icon of “Soviet” identity. I am particularly interested in examining the reasons behind the shifting locus of representation embodied by the national team: why and how Moscow, endowed with all of the USSR’s most important political institutions, dominant sport institutions, and the best clubs in the country, lost its monopoly on the national team, with Tbilisi and especially Kyiv growing in importance. My dissertation explains how a mix of key individuals, political changes, shifting societal norms, strengthening nationalism, fragmentation of power in Moscow, evolving regional sport/governmental institutions, and hockey (of all things) played a role in significantly impacting the national team’s meaning, composition, and results. The scope of my project incorporates little known regional sport publications, newspapers, interviews, and memoirs of key participants, as well as research in archives, libraries, and online sources across the USA, Switzerland, Germany, France, England, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. 

More ASEEES News

Ohio state u cseees affiliated faculty promoted.

May 22, 2024

The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Arts and Humanities promoted to Professor: Nicholas Breyfogle (Department of History)Alexander Burry (Department of Slavic and East European Languages […]

ASEEES Closed for Memorial Day

May 21, 2024

The ASEEES office will close early on Friday, May 24 and remain closed on Monday, May 27th for Memorial Day. The office will reopen on Tuesday, May 28th.

May 2024 issue of NewsNet out now

May 20, 2024

Cover Article: “Teaching and Learning Soviet History through the Unessay” by Paula Michaels; “Research in Moldova in 2024: Access to Archives and the Future of Moldovan Studies” by Igor Cașu; […]

Dissertation Fieldwork Grants

These grants of up to $5,000 provide support for fieldwork expenses. For the purpose of this grant, fieldwork is defined as data collection that takes place for an extended period of time (e.g. weeks or months) outside the western Massachusetts geographical area. These grants are not designed to fund data analysis, only expenses related to data collection. In rare instances applicants may request up to $8,000 to help support work that will take place over an extended period of time and therefore incur significant expense. Applicants will need to submit a statement as part of the application to explain why additional funds are being requested. 

Who Is Eligible?

UMass Amherst doctoral students enrolled in a campus-based degree program (i.e. no online programs) and in good academic standing are eligible to apply. Students may receive this grant only once. Applicants who were not awarded a grant in a previous application cycle are eligible to reapply. Students may accept only one research grant from the Graduate School in an academic year. 

Application deadlines are October 15 and February 15 each year. Applicants should plan the timing of their application based on the funding period outlined below: 

• Applications submitted for the October 15, 2023 deadline should include research expenses that begin on January 1, 2024 or later. Awardees must secure all necessary research permission (IRB approval, IACUC approval, travel registry approval)  and complete relevant online CITI training in Responsible Conduct of Research no later than May 24, 2024 or the Fieldwork Grant will be forfeited. 
• Applications submitted for the February 15, 2024 deadline should include research expenses that begin July 1, 2024 or later. Awardees must secure all necessary research permission (IRB approval, IACUC approval, travel registry approval) and complete relevant online CITI training in Responsible Conduct of Research no later than May 24, 2024 or the Fieldwork Grant will be forfeited. 

The application deadline is 11:59 PM on the posted due date. All required materials (including the advisor’s Letter of Recommendation) must be received by this time. Award notifications will be made by the end of the semester in which the application was submitted. 

How to Apply

To allow sufficient planning time, we recommend students submit a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant application at least six months before funds are needed. A completed application includes:

• A  Fieldwork Grant Application . You will login to the application using your UMass email. You may may revise the text entry portions of your application by logging back in; PDFs cannot be edited once they are uploaded. 
• What do you seek to accomplish with your dissertation research? (i.e., what are your research questions/aims/objectives?)
• How will you accomplish this? (i.e., what research methods will you use?)
• What contribution(s) will this research make?
• How would a Fieldwork Grant contribute to your ability to successfully complete your dissertation?
• A Budget Table (use  this template ; upload your completed Budget Table as a PDF in the Fieldwork Grant Application. See tips below for preparing your Budget Table and Budget Justification.)
• A Budget Justification , which provides details on how you arrived at the amounts listed in the Budget Table (upload the Budget Justification as a PDF in the Fieldwork Grant Application; use the tips below and review this  sample Budget Table and Budget Justification  to understand how these documents should be prepared.)
• A letter of recommendation submitted by your advisor (see instructions below). 

Include your first and last name in the file name for every document you upload to the Fieldwork Grant Application. 

Tips for preparing your Budget Table and Budget Justification

• Review the list of eligible and ineligible expenses below. 
• Include enough detail in your Budget Justification for a reviewer to understand how the amounts in your Budget Table connect with the research activities outlined in your Project Description.
• Consult the  UMass Controller's Office website  for standard mileage amounts and other travel expense guidelines. 
• For travel outside the United States estimate your living expenses using your prior experience in that country or the  Fulbright-Hays Maintenance Allowance  guide (use the Monthly Stipend column).

Instructions for Faculty Advisor

The faculty advisor reviews the completed Budget Table and Budget Justification, writes a letter of recommendation, and  submits it online . Note: Faculty do not receive a prompt to submit a letter; use the link provided here. Faculty must login using their UMass email to access the submission portal; non-UMass faculty should contact  researchgrant [at] grad [dot] umass [dot] edu (Heidi Bauer-Clapp)  for submission instructions. 

Please include the student's first and last name in the file name. The letter of recommendation should address the following:

• The student’s ability to carry out the activities proposed in the Fieldwork Grant application.
• The student’s progress in degree program and general academic qualifications.
• The merit of the intended dissertation research and how activities proposed in the Fieldwork Grant application will help the student complete their dissertation.

Review Criteria

The following information will be considered by reviewers: 

• Clarity and quality of the Project Description--applications will be reviewed by faculty outside your field who need to understand what you plan to do, how you will do this work, and the potential impact your work will have. Avoid jargon and technical language! 
• Feasibility of the proposed project: Does it seem likely that you can complete the research plan as outlined? 
• Whether the budget is realistic and cost-efficient
• Quality of the letter of recommendation

Eligible expenses  include (but are not limited to):

• Research-related travel to research site(s) or local travel at the research site(s)
• Living expenses at research site(s) (e.g. lodging, food)
• Fees to use libraries, archives, or databases while at your research site(s)
• Duplication or distribution of research materials (e.g. photocopies of surveys)
• Purchase of research supplies or equipment, which will remain the property of the University

Ineligible expenses  include:

• Salary for the graduate student applicant
• Expenses related to student training, including language or methodology training
• Transcription
• Online research (e.g. costs to conduct an online survey)
• Standard office or laboratory supplies (these include items considered standard for your department/laboratory, i.e. things routinely in stock)
• Purchase of computers or tablets (unless the student can demonstrate that such equipment is integral to data collection)
• Food (with the exception of meals while in the field)
• Costs to attend or present at conferences or meetings
• Purchasing data sets
• Purchase of books
• Fees or other costs associated with publication
• Fees or other costs associated with membership in professional associations
• Costs incurred at home while the researcher is in the field (e.g. rent)

In most cases, award funds will be disbursed as reimbursements, although some expenses such as equipment purchases must be paid directly by the University. Awarded funds are managed by the student’s department; awardees must communicate with their department’s business manager prior to spending any grant funds. Grant recipients will be required to submit a brief report at the end of the grant period to account for how grant funds were spent.

Supplements for Public Engagement or Travel with Children

Applicants for Graduate School Grants are eligible to apply for supplements to cover costs associated with Public Engagement projects or childcare/travel with children during research. Please review the criteria and application information in the Public Engagement and Travel with Children pages.

Questions on the Graduate School Fieldwork Grant should be addressed to  researchgrant [at] grad [dot] umass [dot] edu ( Heidi Bauer-Clapp ) .

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Clemson News

Grants introduced in the College of Education to encourage, support research

The best things in life may be free, but the work and travel required in graduate-level research rarely are. Pursuing a new line of education research often requires intervention materials, assessments and supplies, while networking with fellow researchers requires travel and conference attendance.

With these costs in mind, the Department of Education and Human Development in the Clemson University College of Education has established the Cultivating Opportunities for Research in Education (CORE) awards.

According to Shanna Hirsch, associate professor in the department and member of its graduate student support committee, the department developed the CORE awards to defray the direct expenses of the recipient’s research and conference presentations.

“Graduate students should be able to take advantage of any opportunity that helps them explore their field of interest and build a strong background and network of peers,” Hirsch said. “These awards are designed to remove some of the financial barriers to research, which for many students makes or breaks that research happening at all.”

The CORE awards fall into two categories: CORE Research Grants and CORE Conference and Travel Awards. Students can use the former award to support any research project, including thesis and dissertation-related studies. Alternatively, students can use the CORE Conference and Travel Award to fund attendance and a presentation at a regional or national conference.

Mya Kelley, a special education doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant, has earned both CORE awards. Kelley used the conference and travel award to attend the American Speech Language Hearing Association Convention in November 2023. At the conference, she presented on collaborating with teachers to improve the implementation of culturally responsive strategies with diverse students.

Kelley used the research grant to help support her dissertation on using mixed reality simulation in special education. In the context of preparing pre-service teachers, mixed reality simulation allows them to enter into a virtual classroom and interact with avatars that human actors control. This virtual classroom allows students to practice specific instructional or behavior management strategies or to conduct meetings, conferences or individualized education program meetings.

Kelley knew collaborating with another university on the project would strengthen her research, but she required funding to cover the cost of their faculty’s use of the mixed reality technology.

“The CORE award allowed me to really ‘seal the deal’ and collaborate with another university and give their faculty and students the opportunity to see mixed reality in action,” Kelley said. “That would not have happened without this funding.”

Kelley said she is grateful for both awards and that the funding was crucial for travel and pushing her research further, but their actual value revealed itself when combined with the faculty support she has experienced throughout her time at Clemson. That includes the application process for the awards and the day-to-day support she has received from Hirsch and others in the department and throughout the College.

She said the faculty’s depth and breadth of experience in special education provide options for what graduate students can concentrate on in the program, which makes it unique. Faculty support and help via awards such as CORE combined with access to cutting-edge technology has provided Kelley with an experience she feels is unparalleled in a doctoral program.

“To even be considered for one of these awards requires an application, which for me meant encouragement and support from faculty,” Kelley said. “Faculty support is crucial and critical in collaboration with the CORE award itself; I have always felt supported in that way since beginning my Ph.D. studies at Clemson.”

Get in touch and we will connect you with the author or another expert.

Or email us at [email protected]

May 15, 2024

Tips and Resources for a Successful Summer of Dissertation Writing

By Yana Zlochistaya

Summer can be a strange time for graduate students. Gone are the seminars and workshops, the student clubs, and the working group, that structured the semester and provided us with a sense of community. Instead, we’re faced with a three-month expanse of time that can feel equal parts liberating and intimidating. This double-edged freedom is only exacerbated for those of us in the writing stage of our dissertation, when isolation and a lack of discipline can have a particularly big impact. For those hoping not to enter another summer with lofty plans, only to blink and find ourselves in August disappointed with our progress, we’ve compiled some tips and resources that can help.

According to Graduate Writing Center Director Sabrina Soracco, the most important thing you can do to set yourself up for writing success is to clarify your goals. She recommends starting this process by looking at departmental requirements for a completed dissertation. Consider when you would like to file and work backwards from that point, determining what you have to get done in order to hit that target. Next, check in with your dissertation committee members to set up an accountability structure. Would they prefer an end-of-summer update to the whole committee? A monthly check-in with your chair or one of your readers? Setting up explicit expectations that work for you and your committee can cut through the aimlessness that comes with a major writing project.

For those early on in their dissertation-writing process, a committee meeting is also a valuable opportunity to set parameters. “One of the problems with the excitement for the discipline that happens post-quals is that it results in too many ideas,” says Director Soracco. Your committee members should give you input on productive research directions so that you can begin to hone in on your project. It is also important to remember that your dissertation does not have to be the end-all-and-be-all of your academic research. Ideas that do not fit into its scope can end up becoming conference papers or even book chapters.

Once you have a clear goal that you have discussed with your committee, the hard part begins: you have to actually write. The Graduate Writing Center offers several resources to make that process easier:

• The Graduate Writing Community. This is a totally remote, two-month program that is based on a model of “gentle accountability.” When you sign up, you are added to a bCourses site moderated by a Graduate Writing Consultant. At the beginning of the week, everyone sets their goals in a discussion post, and by the end of the week, everyone checks in with progress updates. During the week, the writing consultants offer nine hours of remote synchronous writing sessions. As a writing community member, you can attend whichever sessions work best for your schedule. All that’s required is that you show up, set a goal for that hour, and work towards that goal for the length of two 25-minute Pomodoro sessions . This year’s summer writing community will begin in June. Keep your eye on your email for the registration link!
• Writing Consultations : As a graduate student, you can sign up for an individual meeting with a Graduate Writing Consultant. They can give you feedback on your work, help you figure out the structure of a chapter, or just talk through how to get started on a writing project. 
• Independent Writing Groups: If you would prefer to write with specific friends or colleagues, you can contact Graduate Writing Center Director Sabrina Soracco at [email protected] so that she can help you set up your own writing group. The structure and length of these groups can differ; often, members will send each other one to five pages of writing weekly and meet the next day for two hours to provide feedback and get advice. Sometimes, groups will meet up not only to share writing, but to work in a common space before coming together to debrief. Regardless of what the groups look like, the important thing is to create a guilt-free space. Some weeks, you might submit an outline; other weeks, it might be the roughest of rough drafts; sometimes, you might come to a session without having submitted anything. As long as we continue to make progress (and show up even when we don’t), we’re doing what we need to. As Director Soracco puts it, “it often takes slogging through a lot of stuff to get to that great epiphany.”

Yana Zlochistaya is a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Comparative Literature and a Professional Development Liaison with the Graduate Division. She previously served as a co-director for Beyond Academia.

2024 CLACS Pre-Dissertation Field Research Grant Recipients

May 21, 2024

Successful applicants receive funding to support their research travel during the summer of 2024 to Latin America and the Caribbean. Congratulations to all!

• Sign up for the CISSR Digest

• Calls for Proposals
• Faculty Research Fellowship Grants
• Faculty Book Workshop and Monograph Enhancement Awards

Dissertation Completion Grants

• Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Grants

The CISSR Dissertation Completion Grant provides funding and office space for doctoral students in the final year of the dissertation. CISSR supports doctoral research on international, transnational, and global questions. Dissertation fellows are expected to engage with others at CISSR and contribute to intellectual life of the Center. Fellows are asked to acknowledge CISSR support in all related publications and submit an end-of-year report.

• Eligibility: University of Chicago doctoral candidates in the Division of Social Sciences who plan to defend the dissertation in the coming academic year are eligible.
• Support: the award is a residential fellowship, in which fellows are provided shared office space in Pick Hall 102 and a $5,000 research allowance that can be used for travel, computing, books, or conference costs.

The application portal will open  February 6, 2024  and close on  March 31, 2024 . 

Requirements

• Candidate’s CV
• Cover Letter (maximum of 1000 words)
• Dissertation Précis (maximum 2000 words)

Applications

Apply for the CISSR Dissertation Fellowship

Deadline to submit applications:  March 31, 2024 at 11:59 PM (CT)

For questions, please contact CISSR at [email protected] .

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The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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