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Sixty Graduate Students Win SSRC Fellowships to Develop Dissertation Proposals on Topics from Development Studies to the Human Sciences

The Social Science Research Council has selected 60 graduate students as the third cohort of its Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) program. Go to DPDF Fellows List. Chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants currently enrolled in U.S. doctoral programs, the 2009 fellows represent 33 institutions nationwide and a wide variety of disciplines, from anthropology and history to political science and environmental studies. The program is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the SSRC.

"This is an astonishingly talented and diverse group of graduate students working with eminent scholars to consolidate critical intellectual fields," said Josh DeWind, Director of the DPDF program. "The program's early success serves as a model for much needed predissertation training in the social sciences and the humanities."

After honing the focus of their dissertations under the guidance of leading U.S. academics in a May workshop, each fellow will receive up to $5,000 to pursue summer research that will test their ideas in practice.  In September, the fellows will join the second of two workshops to help them shape their revised ideas into dissertation research proposals that are both fundable and amenable to timely completion

Fellows participate in one of five annually identified research fields.  In 2009, these are:

• Critical Agrarian Studies
• Empires of Vision
  
• Cultures and Histories of the Human Sciences
• Revitalizing Development Studies
• State Violence
  

The application process for 2010 graduate student fellows will begin in mid-November of this year. The faculty application for 2010 research directorships is now open. For more information, visit the DPDF Web site or contact program staff at dpdf@ssrc.org.

Quick Links:

• 2009 DPDF Fellows List
• Information on 2009 DPDF Workshops

About the SSRC

The Social Science Research Council is an independent, nonprofit international organization founded in 1923. It nurtures new generations of social scientists, fosters innovative research, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues.