External Fellowships / Prizes / Awards Opportunities

The Science, Technology and Research Scholars (STARS) Program, administered by the Yale College Dean’s Office, is designed to support women, minority, economically underprivileged, and other historically underrepresented students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. The STARS program provides undergraduates an opportunity to combine course-based study, research, mentorship, networking, and career planning in the fields of science and technology. The program seeks to improve student performance and persistence rates in all STEM disciplines.

AAUW’s American Fellowships program has been in existence since 1888, making it the oldest noninstitutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States. The program provides fellowships for women pursuing full-time study to complete dissertations, conducting postdoctoral research full time, or preparing research for publication for eight consecutive weeks.

The Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE NNSA SSGF) provides excellent financial benefits and professional development opportunities to students pursuing a Ph.D. in fields of study that solve complex science and engineering problems critical to stewardship science.

The fellowship builds a community of talented and committed doctoral students, program alumni, DOE laboratory staff and university researchers who share a common goal to further their science while advancing national defense. The friendships and connections fellows make in the program continue to benefit them throughout their careers.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration funds the DOE NNSA SSGF to train scientists vital to meeting U.S. workforce needs in advanced science and engineering.

The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) solicitation provides NASA research grants for graduate students (Future Investigators), with a faculty mentor as Principal Investigator. These projects are graduate student-designed and performed research projects. Five SMD divisions at NASA Headquarters, i.e., Astrophysics, Biological and Physical Sciences, Earth Science, Heliophysics, and Planetary Science, conducted/provided oversight for the review and selection process.

The Jane Street Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) supports exceptional doctoral students currently pursuing a PhD in computer science, mathematics, physics, or statistics.

At Jane Street, we take a rigorous, quantitative approach to trading on global markets, combining techniques from machine learning, distributed systems, programmable hardware, statistics, and applied mathematics. Our culture is steeped in games, puzzles, and challenging problems. With the Graduate Research Fellowship, we’re excited to support PhD students who share our values: technical excellence, intellectual curiosity, and humility.

These figures reflect the upper bracket of costs of editorial assistance for master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and academic journal articles, respectively. All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of full-time employment. There are no institutional, departmental, or national restrictions.  

Upcoming deadlines are:

All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of their employment. Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV through the application portal by the relevant deadline.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Eligibility Guidelines See the current Program Solicitation for eligibility guidelines.

Those already enrolled in graduate school may apply one time only.

Description The Lederman Fellowship at Fermilab is intended to attract exceptional postdoctoral candidates who have demonstrated outstanding ability in research and who, in addition, have a strong interest in education and outreach. Lederman Fellows are free to choose any area in Fermilab's broad experimental program for performing their research, including research in neutrino physics, research at the Large Hadron Collider, astroparticle physics, and research in intensity frontier experiments such as Muon g-2 and Mu2e. In recognition of Leon Lederman's commitment to the teaching of physics at all levels, fellows are also expected to participate in educational outreach efforts, for example through the Saturday Morning Physics program. Candidates not selected for the Lederman Fellowship may be considered for other Research Associate opportunities at Fermilab. Eligibility Details are specified in the Advertisement when a new opening becomes available. In general, candidates should either: Have obtained a Ph.D. in an appropriate field after September 1, 2018. or Expect to obtain a Ph.D. in an appropriate field by September 1, 2020. Term of appointment The appointment is for an initial term of three (3) years and there exists the possibility for renewal for an additional two (2) years upon completion of a successful review after the first two (2) years.

This fellowship provides recent graduates (within the past two years) opportunities to work on the experimental research program of the Physics Division, including high-energy collider physics; direct dark matter searches; cosmology using Type Ia Supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the cosmic microwave background; rare decay experiments; and neutrino physics. In all these areas the Physics Division follows a long tradition of advanced detector development as well as data analysis. As employees of Berkeley Lab, Chamberlain fellows work in a research environment synonymous with scientific excellence. Thirteen Nobel Prizes are associated with Berkeley Lab, 8 of them in physics. The Fellowship honors Owen Chamberlain (Nobel Prize 1959), who, together with Emilio Segre, Clyde Wiegand, and Thomas Ypsilantis, discovered the anti-proton at the Berkeley Bevatron in 1955. Berkeley Lab is a truly multidisciplinary environment, with sixteen scientific divisions in addition to Physics, and extensive ties with the adjacent University of California, Berkeley including many centers and activities (for example BCG and BEPP. Berkeley Lab divisions include Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics, Nuclear Science, Engineering, Computational Research, Scientific Networking, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.

The mission of the MIT Pappalardo Fellowships in Physics is to sustain a distinguished, on-campus postdoctoral fellowship program for the Department that identifies, recruits and supports the most talented and promising young physicists at an early stage of their careers. This initiative was made possible by the encouragement and generosity of Mr. A. Neil Pappalardo (EE ’64), an MIT alumnus with a long history of generosity to both the Institute and the Department of Physics.

The program traditionally appoints three new Fellows per academic year for a three-year fellowship term each. Fellows are selected by means of an annual competition for which candidates cannot apply directly, but must be nominated by a faculty member or senior researcher within the international community of physics, astronomy or related fields.

All MIT Pappalardo Fellows in Physics are provided with:

• complete independence in selection and focus of research direction within the MIT Department of Physics throughout their three-year fellowship term
• active faculty mentoring fostered by weekly luncheons and monthly dinners with faculty and guests during the academic year, which promotes scientific exchange and professional growth for the Fellows
• a competitive annual stipend with an annual cost-of-living increase, combined with $15,000 per year in discretionary research funds; and
• MIT Health Affiliate health insurance coverage for Fellows and their dependents.

ORNL’s Distinguished Staff Fellowship program aims to cultivate future scientific leaders by providing dedicated mentors, resources, and enriching research opportunities at a national laboratory. Fellowships are awarded to outstanding early-career scientists and engineers, new to ORNL, who demonstrate success within their academic, professional, and technical areas.

The Stanford Science Fellows program is focused on incubating new directions in foundational scientific research by an interdisciplinary community of independent postdoctoral scholars from around the globe, driven by a sense of wonder about the natural world.