ENVIRONMENTAL FELLOWS PROGRAM
The Environmental Fellows Program at Harvard University
2009 Environmental Fellowship Application Guidelines
"Harvard is committed to fostering the development of talented scholars with an interest in environmental research. The Environmental Fellows at Harvard will work with some of the University's leading faculty, creating linkages across research disciplines and professional schools, and benefiting from all that Harvard has to offer."
-- Daniel P. Schrag, Director, Harvard University Center for the Environment
The Harvard University Center for the Environment will name six new Environmental Fellows in April 2009. Their two-year post-doctoral program will start in September 2009. The fellows will join a group of remarkable scholars who will be beginning the second year of their fellowships. Together, the Environmental Fellows at Harvard will form a community of researchers with diverse backgrounds united by intellectual curiosity, top-quality scholarship, and a drive to understand some of the most important environmental challenges facing society.
Purpose: The Harvard University Center for the Environment created the Environmental Fellows program to enable recent doctorate recipients to use and expand Harvard's extraordinary resources to tackle complex environmental problems. The Environmental Fellows will work for two years with Harvard faculty members in any school or department to create new knowledge while also strengthening connections across the University's academic disciplines.
Requirements:
- Candidates should have received their terminal degree between May 2005 and August 2009. (Fellows must have completed all requirements of their degree before starting work in September 2009.)
- Candidates with a doctorate or equivalent in any field are eligible, and they may propose research projects in any discipline. Applicants without a PhD may apply if they have studied in fields where the PhD is not the typical terminal degree. All successful candidates will be able to demonstrate experience performing scholarly research.
- Each candidate must secure a commitment from one or more Harvard faculty members to serve as a mentor and to provide office or lab space for the two-year fellowship.
- Harvard is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. The Center strongly encourages women and minorities to apply.
- Candidates may have received their degrees at any university in the world. Foreign nationals are eligible for fellowships, though study at Harvard generally requires proficiency in English.
- Candidates who received terminal degrees from Harvard, and post-docs currently working at Harvard are eligible for the fellowship provided their research and host arrangements take them in new directions and forge new connections within the University. Harvard candidates should not propose to continue to work with the same professors or lab groups with whom they are currently associated. No candidate should propose to work extensively with his or her thesis advisor.
- Successful candidates should be prepared to commit to work at Harvard for the full two years of the fellowship.
The award: The fellowship will provide an annual stipend of $54,000 plus health insurance, a $5,000 allowance for travel and professional expenses, and other employee benefits.
The Harvard University Center for the Environment awarded six fellowships in 2008, and expects to award six fellowships in 2009 and six per year thereafter. The Center will organize a co-curricular program to ensure that the fellows get to know each other and each other's work. All fellows will attend biweekly dinners with their colleagues, faculty members, and guests.
The Harvard University Center for the Environment:
The Center encourages research and education about the environment and its many interactions with human society. The Center draws its strength from faculty members, researchers, and students from across the University who make up a remarkable intellectual community of scholars, teachers, and practitioners of diverse fields. The Center's mission is to strengthen and expand that community by supporting research, encouraging faculty and students to apply their particular expertise to environmental topics, and providing a convivial space for collaboration. The Center is located in the University's Geological Museum at 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge.
Selection criteria:
- Applicant's prior academic and professional success and his or her potential contribution to scholarship or practice
- Project significance: the potential impact of the research project on scholarship at Harvard and on environmental problems
- Diversity: The selection committee will select a group of fellows in 2008 who will complement those selected last year, creating a group of approximately a dozen men and women with diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds and a diverse set of academic interests and skills. The ideal group would include fellows working with host faculty members at every one of Harvard's professional schools and many of the departments overseen by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Recipients-and hosts-may include people with degrees in the sciences, economics, law, government, public policy, public health, medicine, design, and the full array of humanities. Their research topics will be equally varied.
- Interdisciplinary research projects are encouraged, although this is not a requirement for the fellowship. Candidates with interests in a single discipline are encouraged to apply.
- Host's commitment: the host faculty member's enthusiasm for the proposed project and fellow, the host's ability to mentor the fellow, and his or her ability to provide office space and a productive work environment.
Finding a Host:
Potential candidates should start early to identify and establish a relationship with a Harvard faculty member to host his or her research. The host will be a mentor to the fellow and will provide office space and basic administrative support. In agreeing to be a host, the faculty member is making a significant commitment.
Successful candidates will be enthusiastically recommended by their proposed host. Each applicant's host must submit a letter of support (maximum of two pages) to the selection committee describing in detail the level of commitment to the research and the candidate.
In the previous round of applications, many Harvard faculty members were approached by many would-be applicants. Some of those faculty members conducted their own selection process to find the one or two applicants they would recommend to the selection committee; other faculty members agreed to be identified as a host on several applications and subsequently provided the selection committee with recommendations comparing the candidates. Some people who started applications were unable to find a host and thus could not complete their applications.
Applicants unfamiliar with Harvard faculty members will find many of them listed on the Center's web pages organized both by academic areas (economics, engineering) and by research topics (climate, human health). Most faculty members have their own web pages which will provide much more detailed information about publications and interests and which may be accessed through the main Harvard website (www.harvard.edu). Applicants are encouraged to use the Center's faculty lists as a starting point only. Hundreds of faculty members who would be excellent hosts are not currently members of the Center. Any faculty member from any discipline may serve as a host, regardless of whether the host has had prior experience with environmental research or the Center.
The only faculty members not eligible to host a fellow in the 2009 group are those who are hosting fellows in the 2008 group: Professors Janet Browne, Scott Edwards, Zhiming Kuang, John Spengler, Eli Tziperman, and Matt Welsh.
Details on the 2008 fellows and their research projects
24 Oxford Street