Department of Anthropology

Graduate Student Funding Opportunities

Are you an anthropology grad student looking for research/travel/writing-up funding? Before you apply for departmental GTR funds, note that we assess whether or not you've applied for other available funds as we consider your application.

External funding opportunities

General grants and fellowships

• Society for Psychological Anthropology

• Halperin Memorial Fund Awards

• Council of American Overseas Research Centers

• American Center for Mongolian Studies Field Research Fellowship

• Explorer's Club student grants

Click here for a more detailed list of Pre-Field,  Field and Post-Field Grant Opportunities. The Brandeis Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website also has information on where to apply for external funding.

Area Studies Funding 

• National Geographic Society-Waitt Foundation Grants

• American Institute of Bangladesh Studies

• Palestinian-American Research Center

• Center for Khmer Studies

• Spencer Research Grants in Education Studies

• American Research Institute in Turkey

• Chiang Chung-kuo Foundation Grants and Fellowships

• Japan Foundation Fellowships

• American-Scandinavian Foundation

• American Institute for Maghrib Studies

• American Institute of Iranian Studies

• Americas Research Network for South American Research

• Additional fellowships listed by the AAA

• And these AAA listings, which include links to more opportunities such as writing awards, travel grants, paper prizes, etc.

Funding for Dissertation Research and Writing

• Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Funding

• Mellon Grants Database

• Dumbarton Oaks Junior Research Fellowships (archaeology)

• Rust Family Foundation

• Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grants

• SSRC/IDRF

• NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants

• Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

• AAA Minority Dissertation (writing) Fellowship

• Association for Feminist Anthropology Dissertation (writing) Award

• Provost’s Research Award (IF your work at Brandeis has placed you in the category of “faculty or staff,” which is occasionally the case for our doctoral students in particular)

• Ruth Landes Grant/Reed Foundation

• American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowships

• Fulbright Grants 

• Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad and IIE Fellowships

• Toyota Foundation

Brandeis and Department Funding Resources

• GSA Travel and Research Grants

• WGS Graduate Grants

• Jane’s Travel Grant

• Brandeis-India Fellows Program

• Crown Center for Middle East Studies Research and Travel Grants

• Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Grants

• Center for German and European Studies Grants

• Brandeis GSAS Graduate funding

• COMPACT Community Engaged Research Fund 
• Mandel Center for the Humanities Graduate Student Dissertation Innovation Grants 
• Mandel Center for the Humanities Research Grants for Graduate Students 

• Departmental GTR funds

External Grants Received

Anthropology PhD students have received major grants to support dissertation research and writing from the following organizations:

• Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for one full year of dissertation write-up support

• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange for one full year of dissertation write-up support

• Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad and Fulbright IIE Fellowships for fieldwork in China, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, and Swaziland

• Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine grant for dissertation research in Cuba

• Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship for fieldwork in Japan

• National Geographic Society-Waitt Foundation Grants to conduct archaeological research on a Maya site after the Classic Period collapse and on a Central Yucatan archaeological cave project

• National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants for fieldwork in China (two recent awards) and in Mexico

• Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship for fieldwork in Cuba

• Toyota Foundation grant to publish components of doctoral dissertation

• Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grantfor fieldwork in Samoa and Cameroon

• PhD students also recently received Fulbright-Hays Awardsto study advanced Zulu and Samoa abroad, and an American Institute of Bangladesh Studies Fellowship to study Bengali at the South Asia Summer Language Institute.