Incite Institute Dissertation Fellowship - Incite at Columbia University
Incite Institute Dissertation Fellowship
- Available for Columbia Arts & Sciences PhD students
- Contact William McAllister Sophia Dowling
In keeping with Incite Institute’s interest in bringing together disciplines from across the university, we conduct the Incite Fellows Program for PhD candidates at the dissertation writing stage. Our idea is to bring together disciplinarily diverse candidates who are interested in and would benefit from warm, intense engagement with the thinking of colleagues from disciplines other than their own. For a more developed statement of program purposes and principles, please read.
We are now seeking a new cohort of fellows for 2026–2027. We seek students whose projects match Incite’s engagement with producing knowledge both within and outside the university and will be enhanced by and contribute to the work of fellow PhD candidates and to the Incite community.
Program features:
Monthly seminar. The main program feature is a monthly seminar at which we collectively discuss a fellow’s dissertation research. Specifically, prior to this meeting, a fellow distributes a dissertation chapter, seminar participants read the chapter, and, at the seminar, we come together in a collaborative manner to provide ideas and comments that further the fellow’s work. Collaboration to further the aims of each fellow’s work is our grounding principle. Critique for its own sake does not interest us. We view these seminars as opportunities for each of us to learn what fields other than their own can contribute to our work, to develop as scholars in our fields, and to learn how to engage with sincere, academic collegiality.
We will hold these seminars at lunch time on the last Friday of the month at Incite, for 90 minutes. We provide lunch. Each fellow presents once. We prefer meeting in-person, but if your research requires Zooming, we can accommodate.
Materiality. Due to funding shortfalls, we are not in a position this year to provide a research stipend. We like to think our program structure and cross-disciplinarity is rare at Columbia and so affords an unusual opportunity to gain atypical, helpful assistance for fellows’ research and dissertation completion. But we live in a material world as well, so in addition to being materially sustained by our lunch, fellows can identify themselves as Incite Fellows on their CVs, and we welcome their using Incite resources during their fellowship year.
Eligibility:
- PhD students in the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
- Prospectus approved between March 15, 2023 and May 31, 2026.
- Prior winners of this award are not eligible. Prior applicants who did not previously succeed are eligible.
Application materials:
- Cover page with full name, department, and date prospectus approved.
- Text that is no more than 1,000 words (strictly observed; excluding references, images, and the like, if used) that describe the dissertation containing the following sections:
- Introduction that identifies your dissertation research question, why it matters, and how you are answering it.
- Three subsequent sections that expand on the three elements just mentioned.
- Timeline to completion.
- Note: Text should be written so that academics from fields outside yours can understand your argument and research approach.
Evaluation criteria:
- Quality of articulating research question, why it matters, how it will be answered.
- Quality of relationship to Incite’s interest in cross-disciplinarity.
- Expressed interest in participating in the Incite community.
- Note: We will award a total of eight fellowships.
Conditions for award acceptance:
- Participation in monthly seminar at Incite in which each fellow presents their research.
Application Materials:
- Please submit application materials as a single PDF package
- Submit via this Google Form
- Deadline: May 31, 2026 at 5:00pm ET
Successful applicants will be notified no later than June 30, 2026.
Application Timeline
- April 23, 2026: Applications open
- May 31, 2026: Applications due by 5:00pm ET
- June 30, 2026: Applicants notified