Andrew Mellon Fellowships are awarded to students of exceptional ability and promise who are enrolled in programs leading to the PhD in various fields of the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
Awards are made on an annual basis. Fellowships include a stipend and tuition scholarship for the academic year for which the award is made. Persons holding Andrew Mellon Fellowships are expected to engage in full-time study during the period of their fellowship. No additional duties are required or permitted.
Candidates for a Mellon Fellowship must be nominated by their department. Each department can nominate two candidates more than the highest number of Mellon Fellowships it received in any of the past five years. Departments are required to rank their candidates, provide a summary statement of each candidate’s strengths, and explain the basis of their ranking to the Mellon Committee in Arts and Sciences.
Eligibility
Students should be in good academic standing: they should have passed the PhD Comprehensive Examination, have a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and should be making good progress toward earning a PhD. Given the competitive nature of these awards, candidates should have demonstrated professional achievement beyond work within their department and the University, e.g., publications, presentations at professional meetings and conferences, etc. Students who apply for the Mellon but who have previously held other fellowships after the first year in the PhD program, such as the Chou, SSDD, Gutierrez or Chancellor’s Graduate Fellowships in Asian Studies, are considered renewals. In this case the student must attach to the proposal a separate statement (one or two paragraphs) explaining what was achieved during the previous fellowship year in terms of research.
Application Process
Students applying for the Mellon Fellowship have traditionally been in their third or fourth year of the PhD program. Students should submit a Notice of Intent form to the Director of Graduate Studies by mid-December in order to apply for the Mellon Fellowship. The notice of intent must be signed by the three faculty members who have agreed to write letters of recommendation for the applicant.
The application form and all supporting materials are submitted online by mid January.
Supporting documentation includes:
- Transcripts of all previous academic work
- Three letters of recommendation from persons able to judge the applicant’s qualifications
- No more than a three-page double-spaced summary describing the applicant’s proposed research and its significance, and/or study plan for the Mellon Fellowship year. The summary should be written to be understood by people in the field of study as well as people in other fields.
- A curriculum vitae
Once all of the supporting documentation has been submitted to the department, the Economics Graduate Committee meets to evaluate and rank the applications.
Mellon Fellowship awards are usually announced by mid-February.