Fellowships Program

Guidelines

Guidelines for the SDE/GWIS Fellowships

The Guidelines for the SDE/GWIS Fellowships (SDE, Eloise Gerry, Vessa Notchev, and Nell I. Mondy Fellowships) are listed below. Following the Guidelines are links to the checklist and the single application form that is used for all SDE/GWIS Fellowships. It is unnecessary for applicants to designate specific Fellowships on the application form. The Fellowships committee will match the overall top-scoring applicants to the appropriate Fellowship awards based on scientific merit, fields of study and requested funding amounts. All Fellowships committee decisions are final. Please note that the application deadline is January 15 of each year, and awards will be announced on or before July 1 of the following year.  Please direct any questions to the Fellowships Coordinator, Julie Gros-Louis, Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu or (319) 384 -1816.

To be eligible, the applicant must be enrolled as a graduate student, or engaged in post-doctoral or early-stage junior faculty academic research, and demonstrate financial need for continuation or completion of their research.  Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for application for the GWIS Fellowships. More information regarding membership in SDE/GWIS may be found here: Become a member

The major component of the research can be either applied or basic. Exact Fellowships amounts will be determined by the SDE/GWIS Fellowships Committee and will range from $1000 to $10,000. All awards will be available for the academic year and will be announced on or before July 1 of each year. Endowment funds, mostly generated from bequests, provide the annual income that supports scientific research done by SDE/GWIS Award winners.  For the 2007-2008 funding cycle we awarded a total of $72,095 in the following manner:

Adele Lewis Fellowship: One award of $5000

Hartley Corporation Fellowship: One award of $3295

SDE Fellowships: Four awards for a total of $15, 000

Eloise Gerry Fellowships: Two awards for a total of $19, 800

Vessa Notchev Fellowships: One award of $4000

Nell I. Mondy Fellowship:  Five awards for a total of $25,000

Guidelines

application · questions? Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu

Purposes
1   To increase knowledge in the fundamental sciences.
2   To encourage research careers in the sciences by women.

Designation of the Awards

1   The Fellowships are to be known as the Sigma Delta Epsilon (SDE), Eloise Gerry, Vessa Notchev and Nell I. Mondy Fellowships. The highest scoring SDE Fellowships designee shall be known as the Adele Lewis Grant/SDE Fellowships winner and the second-best scoring designee shall be known as the Hartley/SDE Fellowships winner. All other winners shall be known as fellowship winners in accordance with the overall fund supporting the award.

2   Awards will be announced on or before July 1 of each year.

Qualifications of Candidate

1   Awards will be made to women holding a degree from a recognized institution of higher learning, of outstanding ability and promise in research, who are performing research at any institution in the U.S. or abroad.  Postdoctoral fellows can expect to be evaluated more rigorously than student applicants.

2   Awards will be made irrespective of race, religion, nationality, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or age. Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for application for the GWIS Fellowships.

3   Awards will be made as follows:

Terms of the Award

1   The funds available in any one year shall be the income from and contributions to the endowment accounts. The amount thus varies from year to year. The Fellowships Committee reserves the right to make no awards if no satisfactory applicants present themselves.

2   The period of the award shall be one academic year (July 1st to June 30th). Recipients are not eligible for subsequent awards from the same fund, though they may apply for a different award.

3   The recipient of an award will submit an abstract of 100 words or less along with a recent wallet-sized black-and-white photo of themselves or digital .jpg file to the SDE/GWIS Bulletin Editor as soon as the awards are announced. This will be used for publication purposes in the national SDE/GWIS annual Bulletin.

4   The recipient of an award will be expected to follow the main outline of the original proposal. If a major deviation from it is essential, approval must be obtained from the Fellowships Committee.

5   The PI of the grant must oversee all of the work in the proposal. The fellowship applicant will be the one who is conducting the work, rather than using the award to support someone conducting work for them (e.g., the funds may not be used by a professor to support a graduate student).

6   Fellowships funds may be used for such things as expendable supplies, small equipment to be used by the recipient (not for general use), publication of research findings, travel and subsistence while performing field studies, or travel to another laboratory for collaborative research. These costs must be clearly justified in the proposal and integral to the research design. Funds cannot be used for the following:  tuition, child care, travel to professional meetings or to begin a new appointment, administrative overhead or indirect costs, personal computers, living allowances, or equipment of general use.  A maximum of $10,000 may be requested-any fellowship proposals requesting over $10000 will be disqualified.

7   If for any reason the recipient is unable to initiate or complete the project, unexpended funds shall be returned to SDE/GWIS.

8   Acknowledgment of support from an award is requested in pertinent publications, oral presentations, and on the awardees’ curriculum vitae.

9   If human or animal subjects are used, an in-house animal subjects committee must evaluate the work, and an approval from the committee must be included in the application.  If approval is pending at the time of application, documentation of approval must be provided to the Fellowships Committee before an award will be made.

10 Research involving field collections must show evidence of the proper collecting permits. If approval is pending at the time of application, documentation of approval must be provided to the Fellowships Committee before an award will be made.

11 Research involving cooperation with scientists from other sites/laboratories must include evidence of this collaboration (i.e., a letter from the host scientist).

12 If the research extends beyond one year, submission of an annual progress report acceptable to the Fellowships Committee is required.

13 Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for Fellowships applications. See (link) for more information on SDE/GWIS membership. Becoming a member

14 An application processing fee of US $20 is required at the time of application. The application fee is required to offset costs associated with application review.click here

15 At the end of the fellowship, a one-page progress report must be sent to SDE/GWIS Past-President Paddy Wiesenfeld. This progress report must be signed by the Fellowships winner’s supervisor, and Dr. Wiesenfeld must receive it by May 15. Any abstracts or reprints resulting from the proposed work must accompany the progress report. Please send progress reports to progressreports@gwis.org.

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Application Instructions
The entire application (see application checklist) must be provided electronically as a SINGLE, COMPLETE PDF by midnight, Central Standard Time, on January 15, 2009. The reviewing committee reserves the right to reject any application not electronically submitted by the deadline, any application that does not meet requirements, or is incomplete.  Committee decisions are final.  The awards will be announced on or before July 1.

Note: You may only apply for one award in a given year.

Checklist for all Fellowships
Application form for all Fellowships

SDE/GWIS Fellowships Coordinator:
Dr. Julie Gros-Louis, SDE/GWIS Fellowships Coordinator
Dept. of Psychology
E11 Seashore Hall
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
(319) 384-1816
email:  Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu

Frequently Asked Questions

SDE/GWIS Fellowships Program Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Send questions to Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu

Yes, all women scientists that are conducting research in the natural sciences regardless of nationality are eligible for application for any of the SDE/GWIS Fellowships. We simply require that all applicants pay an application fee in US dollars at the time of application.

Yes, all funds awarded by SDE/GWIS Fellowships are made to the individual applicant and not the institution. The research should be conducted in locations proposed in the application, and any location is eligible for scientific research.

No, the SDE/GWIS Fellowships may only be used to fund travel for field or collaborative research expenses. Travel for other purposes is an ineligible expense. SDE/GWIS no longer offers specific Fellowships for travel to professional conferences.

Approval of recommendations of the awards winners is made annually during the SDE/GWIS National meeting which is held in early June. Applicants for SDE/GWIS Fellowships can expect to be notified of their award status no later than July 1 following the SDE/GWIS National meeting.

The application deadline for all SDE/GWIS Fellowships applications is January 15.

The funds that are awarded from SDE/GWIS Fellowships are awarded to individual applicants. The award winners must use the Fellowships funds for the purposes outlined in their Fellowships application proposed research. However, the timeline for the spending of those funds is up to the individual as long as the budget for research spending is justified adequately. For example, if you are requesting funding for a field research project that begins in May and the funds are awarded in July, you may include the funding for the entire project in your budget in your fellowship application with the understanding that if you are awarded the funds in July, you may reimburse yourself for the research supplies and money spent toward the project since May.

SDE/GWIS Fellowships are intended to provide supplemental funding to women scientists conducting research in the natural sciences. Fields of social science that use the scientific method are eligible to apply. To be eligible, your research must use the scientific method as described below:

            Scientific Method

***Only hypothesis-driven research is eligible for SDE/GWIS Fellowships.

First, all applicants must be women scientists who have already completed a bachelor’s degree, and are conducting research in the natural sciences. Second, all applicants must pay the application fee in US dollars. All applications must be complete and received by the deadline along with the application fee (deadline: midnight, Central Standard Time, Jan. 15, 2009).

For the 2007-2008 funding cycle, 193 complete applications were received. Fourteen fellowships ranging from $1800 - $9800 were awarded.

To see a list of the 2007-2008 awardees

      10. Is membership in SDE/GWIS a requirement for application to the GWIS Fellowships?

No. GWIS Fellowships applicants are not required to be members of SDE/GWIS. For information on SDE/GWIS membership at both the national and local levels, Becoming a member

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Application Checklist

SDE/GWIS Fellowships checklist

The entire application (except the letters of recommendation) must be submitted electronically as a SINGLE, COMPLETE PDF document to Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu with “SDE/GWIS Fellowship Application” and applicant’s name in the subject line no later than midnight, Central Standard Time, on January 15, 2009. Please name the pdf application file as follows lastname_firstinitialapp.pdf (for example: smith_kapp.pdf). Also, please tell your reviewers to name the file in a similar fashion, with ‘rec’ instead of ‘app’ at the end-for example: smith_krec.pdf. All file names for applications and recommendations should adhere to this file naming procedure or the application will be returned!!

View the checklist here.

Application Form

Printable Application Form 2008-2009.

Fellowships Coordinator

Fellowships Coordinator for 2008-2011

Dr. Julie Gros-Louis, PhD
Department of Psychology
11 Seashore Hall E
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242-1407
Phone:
Fax: 319-335-0191
Julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu

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