Dissertation Completion Fellowship Opportunity for PhD Students

The Graduate College's Dissertation Completion Fellowships help outstanding students complete the doctoral degree by providing a one-year stipend of $20,000 along with waivers of tuition, service fee, health service fee, AFMFA fee, library/IT fee.  In addition, the fellow will receive partial payment of the graduate student health insurance fee per semester as well as basic dental and vision coverage.

ELIGIBILITY

Eligible students will be nominated by their department or program. Nominees must be enrolled in a program leading to the PhD, DMA, EdD, or JSD and should have completed all requirements for the doctoral degree except the dissertation. Only those students who have passed the preliminary examination by the nomination deadline and who will defend and deposit their dissertations by August 2018 are eligible for nomination. 

NOMINATION PROCEDURE

Students must be nominated by their department, and departments may nominate up to two students each. Students, nominating officials, and letter writers should each submit their respective materials to Lance Cooper in the Grad Office by no later than Monday, April 10, so the grad office can put together the nomination and submit by the April 11, 2017 deadline.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

The nomination package must contain the following documents, arranged in the following order:

1.  Dissertation Completion Nomination Form, as completed by the nominating official (Director of Graduate Studies).  As part of the form, the nominating official must include a statement supporting the nomination as well as a note explaining how the department ranked its nominees.  

2.  CV.  The CV is limited to three pages, and it must have one-inch margins and at least 11-point font throughout.

3.  Research Proposal. The Research Proposal must be written in an accessible, jargon-free manner appropriate for a multidisciplinary review panel.  It should contain the following components:          

A.  Introduction/Problem Statement.  (In this section, the research question, hypothesis, or engineering goal must be stated explicitly.)         

B.  Background and significance.         

C.  Preliminary research.         

D.  Methodology.         

E.  Timeline.         

F.  Expected outcomes.     

The research proposal is limited to three double-spaced pages, and it must be in Times New Roman, with 12-point font and one-inch margins.       A separate one-page References Cited section is allowed (must be single-spaced, in Times New Roman, with 12-point font and one-inch margins).  No appendices or other supplemental sections are allowed.

4.  Two letters of reference: one from the student's adviser and one from the student's thesis director. If the student's adviser and thesis director are the same person, the second letter should come from another member of the student's dissertation committee.  Each letter is limited to two pages and must be in 12-point font with one-inch margins.

5.  Current University of Illinois transcript (unofficial will suffice).