UNC Geography Awards for Graduate Students:
- Travel Awards (Deadline: October 5 and February 5): For academic conference travel
- Seed Research Awards (Deadline: October 5 and February 5): For conducting preliminary research needed to develop dissertation research project.
- The Steve Birdsall Summer Award (Deadline in spring, TBA): This award supports summer research and living expenses of graduate students.
UNC Funding Opportunities for Graduate Students:
Summer:
- Summer teaching opportunities in the UNC Summer School: Our department offers several mostly introductory level courses in Summer Term I and II. Graduate students who have a Masters degree or have completed their doctoral exams can apply to the Department for teaching a summer course.
- Summer research assistantship opportunities are sometimes available, depending on faculty projects.
- The Graduate School offers a competitive Summer Research Fellowship for summer research and the Richard Bland Professional Pathways Program for supporting summer work opportunities.
- UNC Center for Global Initiatives provides a number of summer and academic year funding opportunities for graduate students, including the Carolina Global Initiative Award, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Abroad, and Pre-Dissertation Exploration Award.
- The Institute for the Study of the Americas offers several funding opportunities for graduate students whose research focuses on Latin America, including Pre-Dissertation Summer Field Research Summer Grants (Tinker Field Research).
- UNC Center for European Studies also provides funding for graduate student research and travel, as well as Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships. Other Area Studies Centers, such as the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations and Carolina Asia Center, also have funding opportunities.
- The Office of Distinguished Scholarships offers many funding opportunities for graduate students, including Boren Awards (National Security Education Program).
- UNC Geography students have also found opportunities to work at the Southern Oral History Project and received fellowships and grants from the Center for the Study of the American South. ODUM and GIS library may have open positions for the summer.
Academic Year:
- UNC Graduate School offers many competitive awards, fellowships, and grants for graduate students at various stages of their studies: Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship and Dissertation Completion Fellowship for research and writing; Graduate Tuition Incentive Scholarship (for assistance with tuition), Graduate Student Transportation Grant (for conference travel), Graduate Student Opportunity Fund (for unusual and unexpected academic expenses), Distinguished Dissertation Award, Impact Award, Horizon Award, and Boka W. Hadzija Award for Distinguished University Service.
- University of North Carolina Graduate and Professional Student Federation Travel Grant for Field Research
- UNC Office of the Provost Tanner Teaching Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants
- UNC Center for Global Initiatives provides a number of summer and academic year funding opportunities for graduate students, including the Carolina Global Initiative Award, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Abroad, and Pre-Dissertation Exploration Award.
- UNC Area Studies Centers, such as the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, Carolina Asia Center, and the Institute for the Study of the Americas offers several funding opportunities for graduate students depending on regional focus.
- The Writing Center: Each spring, The Writing Center hires the graduate students who will join the Center in the following academic year.
- Our graduate students have also found opportunities as teaching assistants in The Curriculum in Global Studies and Women and Gender Studies.
- Carolina Population Center offers training programs for graduate students.
External Funding Opportunities for Graduate Students
- National Science Foundation, NASA, Ford Foundation (pre-doctoral and doctoral fellowships), Social Science Research Council, and American Council of Learned Societies offer many funding opportunities for graduate students. We work closely with our graduate students in developing proposals for these programs and UNC Geography students have been very successful in securing funding from these organizations.
- Various awards and small grants are offered through the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and AAG specialty groups (Cultural Geography, Energy and Environment, Political Ecology, European Geography, etc.).
- Geological Society of America, Graduate Student Research Grant
- For students who are naturalized, or born to parents who were not US citizens, adopted from another country, r have DACA status: Paul and Daisy Soros fellowships for new Americans
- The Smithsonian offers fellowships for a range of topics, including some summer funding.
- Some students might find some interest in the Rotary programs.
UNC Funding Portal contains a repository of funding sources available to UNC graduate students. The Graduate Funding Information Center (GFIC) supports current and prospective UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students seeking sources of funding for independent research, collaborative projects, fellowships, program development, and other scholarly activities.
