The MAE academic advisors send out information about fellowship and other award opportunities as their application deadlines near. The list below organizes many of the recurring awards that are available to Graduate Students at UC San Diego. Many of the awards below require department nominations, so eligible students should contact their academic advisor to be considered.
Admissions
Admissions awards are coordinated during the admissions process. Applicants my not self-nominate, but all students who complete the Additional Education Experiences section of the application will be considered. Not all applicants who complete the Additional Educational Experiences section will be nominated for awards, and not all applicants who are nominated will be selected.
- San Diego & Cota Robles Fellowships: Provide four years of guaranteed tuition, fees and stipend/paycheck. Years one and four are funded via stipend payments from the Graduate Division and the MAE Department. Years two and three are typically funded by the faculty advisor in the form of a Graduate Student Researcher or Teaching Assistant (TA) position. Awardees should apply for TA positions in the Department and in other departments on campus during years two and three.
- SEED Award: Provides five years of guaranteed tuition, fees and stipend/paycheck to applicants who obtained their associate, bachelors, or master's degree from an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), an Historically Black College or University (HBCU), or a Tribal College or University (TCU). Years one, four, and five are funded via stipend payments from the Graduate Division and the MAE Department. Years two and three are typically funded by the faculty advisor in the form of a Graduate Student Researcher or Teaching Assistant (TA) position. Awardees should apply for TA positions in the Department and in other departments on campus during years two and three.
November
- Bouchet Graduate Honor Society: The Bouchet Society seeks to recognize and continue Dr. Edward Alexander Bouchet’s pioneering contributions to doctoral education by developing a network of pre-eminent scholars who serve as examples of leadership, character, service, and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy. Candidates for nomination should be doctoral students in high academic standing who have advanced to candidacy. Five nominees will be selected to represent UC San Diego at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education held at Yale University in Spring, where they will also be inducted into the society. Selected students will be supported by the Graduate Division.
- Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars Program: Provides opportunities for some of our top advanced graduate students to participate in a faculty-mentored professional development teaching program. Graduate students teaching will receive the regular Summer Session salary as Associates-In and a $1,200 payment for participation in the training program. Faculty mentors will receive a $500 payment to a research account.
- Amelia Earhart Fellowship: The Amelia Earhart Fellowship was established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot and Zontian, Amelia Earhart. The US $10,000 Fellowship is awarded annually to up to 30 women pursuing Ph.D./doctoral degrees in aerospace-applied sciences or aerospace-applied engineering. It may be used at any university or college offering accredited post-graduate courses and degrees in these fields.
January
- Chateaubriand Fellowship: The Chateaubriand Fellowship is a grant offered by the Embassy of France in the United States. It supports outstanding Ph.D. students from American universities who wish to conduct research in France for a period ranging from 4 to 9 months. The award provides a monthly stipend, health insurance for the entire duration of the fellowship, and a round-trip ticket to France. Students can apply here.
- Switzer Environmental Fellowship: This fellowship provides awardees with a one-year $15,000 cash award; access to other Switzer grant programs and career support; and membership in the Switzer Fellowship Network, an active and engaged community of over 600 environmental leaders in the U.S. and around the world. The Switzer Foundation is interested in applications from both terminal Master’s degree students and doctoral students. Master’s students who are likely to continue to a doctoral program should not apply until the doctoral stage. To be eligible, PhD students must have completed at least three years of doctoral study or have passed their qualifying exams. All potential applicants must be U.S. citizens in order to be eligible. This Fellowship is not intended to be a research fellowship. Leadership potential is a more significant factor in the evaluation than the specifics of a particular graduate research project. Students may apply online.
March
- Friends of the International Center Scholarship: This scholarship is given to graduate students planning to conduct research or study abroad and to foreign graduate students in residence at UCSD. Awardees will promote international friendship, understanding, and cooperation and contribute in a meaningful way to programs at the International Center.
- Henry Booker Prize for Ethical Engineering: This $1,000 prize is awarded to one exceptional Ph.D. student in their last year of study who is performing ethical and socially responsible research that will make a positive impact on society.
- Kenneth & Dorothy Hill Fellowship: provides a stipend of $12,000 (paid over 12 months) plus resident tuition and fees for students conducting research at the Mandeville Special Collections Library.
- Tinker Field Research Grant: These grants are awarded to graduate students for travel and field-related expenses for brief periods of pre-dissertation field research in Latin America (defined as Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries of the region). Grants will not be awarded to students who travel to Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Spain.
- UC San Diego Advisory Committee on Sustainability Sustainability Awards: Awards those who are closely-affiliated with UC San Diego and who have worked outside the capacity of their job descriptions to advance one or more of the Advisory Committee on Sustainability’s goals to make sustainability part of UC San Diego’s ongoing education, research, planning, operation and/or outreach programs; and to share information about UC San Diego’s education, research, planning, operational and/or outreach activities related to environmental stewardship and sustainability with the campus community and the public. Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
- University of California Human Rights Center Fellowship: Recipients will be awarded $5,000 to enable students to carry out clearly defined fieldwork, domestically or internationally, with organizations working on human rights issues related to a student’s area of interest. Applicants must plan to spend at least 6-8 weeks full-time or its equivalent part-time working with a partner organization to qualify.
April
- Frieda Daum Urey Endowed Fellowship: awards $4,000 to a woman who has had a significant hiatus in her studies since undergraduate education, and subsequently enrolls in graduate or professional studies on the General Campus or The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and for whom the award of the fellowship will make a critical financial difference in her ability to attend UCSD.
- Guru Gobind Singh Fellowship: These $30,000 fellowships are awarded to graduates of universities in a specific area of India and Pakistan for the purpose of pursuing graduate study at the University of California.
- International Institute Graduate Student Research and Travel Grant: These awards are intended to partially offset dissertation research travel expenses incurred in the U.S. or abroad. Supported research should be about other societies rather than simply conducted in other societies. Applications are accepted from any discipline as long as it deals with international or global issues, cross-national comparisons, or research on particular societies and also has a substantial human or societal dimension.
- Oceanids Memorial Fellowship: awards $3,000 to a graduate student who has exhibited academic excellence and financial need at the General Campus of UCSD or the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
May
- Joseph Naiman Graduate Fellowship in Japanese Studies: provides up to $10,000 to support summer and academic research on Japan.
- Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowships: the following awards provide a full year of support for students in the final stages of their dissertation. Award amounts are supplemented by the MAE department so that awardees are fully-funded.
- President's Dissertation Year Fellowship: awards $22,000, tuition, fees and a $490 research/travel allowance to students who have overcome educational, social or economic barriers; or whose research or planned career direction focuses on problems related to disadvantaged segments of society; and who demonstrate strong potential, promise and desire for a university teaching and research career.
- Fletcher Jones Fellowship: awards $25,000, tuition and fees to students who demonstrate financial need.
- Mary Anne Fox Dissertation Year Fellowship: awards $22,000, tuition and fees to a student who demonstrates a highly distinguished academic record.
- Jean Fort Dissertation Prize: provides $500 to a Ph.D. recipient of unusual intellectual breadth whose doctoral research has met the highest standards of academic excellence and may make a significant contribution on an issue of humanitarian or public concern.
- UC-National Lab In-Residence Graduate Fellowship: provides funding for researchers and laboratory scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Letters of Intent are due in May.
June
- Chancellor's Dissertation Medal: awardees are honored at commencement and recognized on the Graduate Division website. The medal considers nominees for impact (the importance and impact of the research to the field and/or the department), originality (the insight, originality, and creativity shown by the author), presentation (the effectiveness of the writing, clarity, and organization of the thesis), and quality (the soundness of the methodology and the quality of the data).
- Rita L. Atkinson Graduate Fellowship: awardees receive a one-year award of $20,000 (paid over twelve months) plus tuition and fees. Eligible students are continuing graduate students engaged in interdisciplinary studies in the sciences and related fields.
July
- Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS): awardees receive a $7,500 stipend for excellence in research. Nominees must be Ph.D. students, U.S. citizens, registered full-time for the entire year, have a GPA of 3.5 or higher, and may not be in his/her final year of study.
Graduate Fellowship Initiative
The Graduate Division will consider supplemental tuition and fees for the following graduate fellowships in order to diversify and increase the number of fellowships awarded to UCSD graduate students. They will also consider support for other fellowships that meet eligibility criteria (underrepresented on campus, broad disciplinary eligibility, etc.). Contact your academic advisor for more information.
- American Association of University Women American Summer/Short-Term Research Publication Grants (eligible for one quarter of tuition and fees supplement)
- American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship
- Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
- Chateaubriand Fellowship
- CLIR/Library of Congress Mellon Fellowship
- Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship
- Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
- Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
- Fulbright IIE Fellowships
- Gates Millenium Scholarship
- Harvard University Program on Negotiation Fellowships
- Josephine De Karman Fellowship
- Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completing Fellowship
- Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships (eligible for one quarter of tuition and fees supplement)
- Social Sciences Research Council Fellowships