Departmental Fellowships and Awards

Most graduate students are supported financially by sources connected with the department. Nearly all research and teaching assistantships, as well as university fellowships, include tuition remission and benefits. Stipends for graduate assistantships and fellowships range from $30,000 to $31,350. Very competitive students who receive fellowships through the graduate school or through the department can receive multi-year enhancement awards ranging from $40,000 to $60,000. 

Each year the department provides fellowships and awards through the generous support of private donors. These fellowships and awards are in honor of departmental faculty that have made extraordinary contributions to our program and to the field of sociological research. Deadlines, evaluation criteria, and submission information will be circulated by the end of the fall semester each year.

Click on each of the fellowships or awards below to find out more about them or contact our Graduate Office (gradsoc [at] umd.edu, 301-405-6430).

Professor Harriet Presser, during her lifetime, established an endowment to establish a fellowship to support a graduate student at dissertation writing stage who is specializing in Population and Gender. This Fellowship is meant to support a graduate student who has successfully completed comprehensive examinations and is specializing in the field of population and gender. The award will cover stipend and tuition/health insurance with no teaching or research responsibilities for one semester, allowing the recipient to focus solely on their dissertation. The recipient must have successfully defended their dissertation proposal; although those planning defend their proposal prior to commencing the fellowship will also be considered.

Dr. William H. Form received the first doctoral degree awarded by the Department of Sociology. The Fellowship is for students to engage in research activities with a high likelihood of producing pre-dissertation publications. We want especially to fund students who are preparing manuscripts for submission to journals, with priority given to those that will go out for review by the end of summer.  

The purpose of this summer funding will be to allow graduate students time to work on independent research. We are encouraging students to work on a paper for which they are sole or lead authors. Note that this funding is not for dissertation research, although students working on the dissertation might conceivably request money for a project on which they are working that is separate from it.

Students applying for the Graduate School Summer Research Fellowship will also be considered for this award unless they have already received the grad school award in a previous year.

Dr. Ramon Henkel was a professor in the University of Maryland’s Sociology Department. He was an excellent teacher in sociological quantitative methods. As such, the Henkel family has established an award in Dr. Henkel’s memory to be given to a student completing their dissertation using quantitative methods. The award will support research expenses for a student in the dissertation stage.

The Dr. Joan R. Kahn Endowed Graduate Research Support Fund will provide annual awards of up to $2,500 to support graduate student research. Preference will be given to data collection or acquisition but can include any research expenses. The application should include a narrative describing the research project, how funding is necessary for the project, and other efforts to secure funding for the research (with priority given to applicants who have sought other funding, such as a Dean’s Research Initiative award).

This award recognizes an outstanding graduate teaching assistant each academic year (in years where there are multiple exceptional nominees, more than one award may be given). Nominations may only be made by the instructor of record for a given TA. Nominations may be for performance in any course offered within a year of the award.

UMD Graduate School Fellowships

The University of Maryland Graduate School has a number of fellowships available for students to apply for during various stages in their graduate program. Students interested in applying for these fellowships should review the criteria set by the Graduate School. Students should note that the department sets earlier deadlines than those of the Graduate School since each graduate program may submit a limited number of nominations. Submissions information will be communicated well in advance of internal deadlines. Find out more about these opportunities on the graduate school website.

Graduate School Funding Opportunities

 

External Funding Opportunities

Below are a list of external funding opportunities that our graduates have had success with. Other opportunities will be announced on the program ELMS page for current students as we learn about them. Click on each opportunity to learn more about them.

The Federal government uses Pathways Programs to hire individuals who are generally in the early stages of their careers. These programs are authorized by the president through Executive Order (E.O.) 13562. Individuals who successfully complete a Pathways Program may be eligible for noncompetitive conversion to a term or permanent job in the Federal civil service. Provides  graduate students with opportunities for paid work in agencies and to explore Federal careers. Applicants must be enrolled at least part-time in school or an educational program (including Registered Apprenticeship Programs and certain volunteer service programs). Interns must complete a minimum of 480 internship hours (320 hours if they receive a waiver) to be eligible for conversion.

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RAND's Summer Associate Program introduces outstanding graduate students to RAND, an institution that conducts research on a wide range of national security problems and domestic and international social policy issues. The program receives about 600 applications each year for the 30+ positions. The selection process is based on matching Summer Associates and their specific skill sets with researchers and their project needs.

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The Post-Doctoral Fellow may be tasked with conducting literature reviews, identifying and prepaying measures for data collection, collecting data, conducting data entry, conducting data management and analyses, assisting with preparing briefing materials, and contributing to technical reports and/or conference papers based on the data analysis. The Post-Doc will be asked to analyze the TOPS data file and provide semi-annual briefing charts with additional analyses as requested throughout the year. The Post-Doc will be asked to identify gaps in our criterion data collection and investigate measures to address the gaps. The Post-Doc will be asked to examine compensatory relationships between available accession screens to maximize prediction of performance.

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FSRU conducts applied research on team effectiveness and houses ARI’s Basic Research Program. FSRU researchers, post-doctoral fellows, and students develop and execute projects related to team effectiveness, to include identification of predictors of team effectiveness, improving understanding of the criterion space, and examining contextual factors that impact team composition frameworks. Research fellows assigned to FSRU’s Basic Research Team will execute projects related to one of four strategic focus areas for advancing science: 1) Science of Measurement of Individuals and Collectives; 2) Understanding Multilevel and Organizational Dynamics; 3) Formal/Informal Learning and Development; and 4) Context of Behavior in Military Environments. Projects will be both quantitative and qualitative in nature.

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The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College sponsors the annual Dissertation Fellowship Program in the field of retirement income research.  The program is funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration and provides funding opportunities for doctoral candidates to pursue cutting-edge research on retirement issues.

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The White House Internship Program’s mission is to make the “People’s House” accessible to future leaders from around the nation. Interns at the Initiative are responsible for assisting the staff on a wide range of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) issues and priorities, including capacity-building, civil rights, data disaggregation, economic development, education, health, immigration, language access, and workforce diversity. In addition, interns will help write policy memos and proposals, draft blogs, assist with communications and social media, coordinate and staff events, and conduct outreach to national and local AAPI organizations and leaders. WHIAAPI Seattle and San Francisco interns will focus primarily on expanding AAPI regional engagement efforts through effective outreach and event planning.

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Last modified
01/20/2025 - 3:48 pm