Doctoral Student Fellowships

ELIGIBILITY: Doctoral student applicants must be nominated by their department. Departments may submit up to three nominations (unranked).

All Ph.D. candidates who have completed all degree requirements except for the dissertation and are maintaining matriculation with full-time status in the humanities and arts disciplines in the Graduate School of Arts and Science (including IFA, Performance Studies, and Cinema Studies) or the Steinhardt School are eligible to apply. Candidates must already have made significant progress on their dissertations.

Strong priority will be given to students in their final year. Doctoral Fellows who are fully funded by the Center are expected not to teach during the fellowship year. GSAS students may apply for a fellowship for post-MacCracken support.

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS: There are two main requirements expected of students participating in this program:

Department Nomination
Students must be nominated by their department chair in consultation with their director of graduate studies. A department may nominate up to three students.

Weekly Meetings
Fellows are required to attend in-person weekly meetings with the entire cohort of research fellows. These meetings provide an opportunity to discuss projects and emerging humanities trends.

FUNDING: Doctoral Student Fellows receive a nine-month stipend commensurate with McCracken funding, comprehensive health insurance, maintenance of matriculation and registration fees, and a research award of $2,000. If awarded a NYU Center for the Humanities Research Fellowship, the student may not hold any other full-year grant/fellowship from another funding source.

In addition to the three Doctoral Fellows to be funded through the Center, two winners of the GSAS Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship or Mellon Fellowship will be selected as Honorary Fellows to participate in the year’s weekly meetings and events. Each Honorary Fellow will receive a research award of $2,000 and will take part fully in the Center’s programming. No separate application is necessary to be considered for the Honorary Fellowship.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: Applications for the Graduate Student Research Fellowship competition may be submitted only by the student’s department. Applicants should therefore check on internal departmental deadlines.

Doctoral Students: Please contact your department administrator to indicate your interest in the fellowship and determine departmental procedures for applying. It is your responsibility to ensure that the department administrator is supplied with all required materials and information for your application (excepting the letters of support).

Department Administrators: You are responsible for submitting all materials and information electronically through InfoReady, including: the student’s dissertation title, project proposal, unofficial NYU transcript, and two letters of support (one from the Department Chair and one from the Dissertation Advisor). A single letter of support for multiple students (e.g., a Chair’s letter supporting the applications of three students) may be copied and attached to different applications. Please complete one application for for each student.

1. Applicant Information
Department administrators will be asked to include the student’s following information: department, school, address and phone number, e-mail address, Net ID, NYU ID Number (N#), and expected date of PhD. They will also need to provide the name, title, phone number, and e-mail address of the student’s dissertation advisor, director of graduate studies, and department chair.

Full Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Students must provide their department administrator with a full CV to submit via the application form.

2. Research Experience & Project
Department administrators will be asked to include the title of the student’s dissertation in addition to uploading the documents listed below.

Proposal (PDF)
The proposal, consisting of no more than 1000 words, should describe the dissertation, its importance for the field in particular and the humanities more generally, and the progress expected to be made during the Fellowship year.

Unofficial Graduate Transcript (PDF)
The student’s transcript can be obtained by either the student or department administrator from albert.nyu.edu.

3. Letters of Support
Department administrators are responsible for collecting and uploading two letters of support for the student: one from the dissertation advisor, and one from the department chair.

Dissertation Advisor
This letter should assess the student’s expected contribution to his/her field and his/her ability to engage productively with an interdisciplinary group of scholars. Letters should be submitted directly to the department administrator to be included in the student’s application.

Department Chair
In the case of multiple applications from the same department, a single letter is acceptable as long as it addresses each candidate.

SELECTION CRITERIA AND REVIEW PROCESS: Fellows will be selected by the NYU Center for the Humanities Fellowship Review Committee. The proposal and the department nomination will form the basis for the Committee’s decision making. Criteria for selection will be the strength and promise of the research project, the student’s academic record, and the potential for the student to contribute to and benefit from broad-based interdisciplinary discussions and activities. Applicants will be notified in April. 

QUERIES: Questions regarding applications should be addressed to info@nyuhumanities.org.