Graduate Fellowship Program

Ethnographic and fieldwork research demands significant time, energy, and focus.

The Lab's graduate fellowship program supports PhD students as they conduct dissertation research. Financially, fellows will receive $5,000 stipends to defray the costs of central research tasks, including travel to fieldsites, transcription of interviews, and compensation for participants. In terms of intellectual support, the Lab coordinates and funds an "Advanced Empirical Seminar" for each graduate fellow. Each graduate fellow will select a distinguished scholar from outside the university whose insights they wish to integrate into their dissertation. The Lab brings these outside scholars to Stanford to provide mentorship and feedback on fellows’ in-progress work (e.g., dissertation chapter, journal article).   

Fellowships are open to Stanford PhD candidates who are conducting fieldwork (e.g., ethnography, observations, interviews) as a central component of their dissertations. Applicants must have successfully defended their dissertation proposal, have collected at least some portion of fieldwork data, and have begun the analysis and writing process by the time of their application to the program. Priority will be given to students who are currently active in the Lab workshop and events. Fellows are expected to regularly attend and contribute to the Lab's associated Qualitative and Fieldwork Methods Workshop.

The application portal for the 2023-2024 fellowship is now closed.

Apply with the following materials:

• Extended abstract/summary of your dissertation project (~1,000 words).
• Current CV.
• Writing sample. (We strongly suggest submitting a writing sample that is part of, or at minimum related to, your dissertation project.)
• The names of three faculty members from outside Stanford University that you would like the Ethnography Lab to invite to read your work and travel to Stanford for your Advanced Empirical Seminar.

Questions? Email Professor Forrest Stuart (fstuart@stanford.edu).