Brandeis graduate students regularly receive fellowships and grants to support their MA and PhD research. This page lists funds available through Brandeis University (internal) as well as other associations (external) where students can apply for grants. You can also take a look at Johns Hopkins University's continually updated databases of graduate fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships or check out the following multidisciplinary databases:

  • Find Funding Opportunities
    A research guide from Brandeis Library that links you to subscription databases containing funding opportunities across the academic disciplines and in the social sector.
  • Foundation Directory Online (FDO) Professional
    Identify grantmakers and potential funding sources with this database from the Foundation Center. Updated weekly, it also provides keyword searching of IRS 990 filings.
  • GrantForward
    Find funding for your research via this database of grant sponsors and funding opportunities. Create a researcher profile for easier searching and customized recommendations.
  • Grants.gov
    Grants.gov allows individuals and organizations to electronically find and apply for competitive grant opportunities from all Federal grant-making agencies, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.
  • Immigrants Rising Scholarships and Fellowships List
    The organization Immigrants Rising has created a list of scholarships and fellowships that do not require proof of US citizenship of the recipients.
  • Pivot
    A resource for identifying research funding. Users may create Pivot accounts, which allow them to manage active or tracked funding opportunities, save funding records and searches, and manage saved searches and shared opportunities.

In the 2022-2023 academic year, more than twenty GSAS students received external fellowships or grants! They shared a range of advice for their peers.

  • Alexandra Burkot, a Musicology PhD student who received a Schwarz Fellowship for Research on Music, said, "Ask people outside of your discipline to review your work...you want to make sure that you are able to speak to multiple audiences without compromising your scholarship."
  • Katherine Seavey, a Psychology PhD student who received a Larry J. Siegel Graduate Fellowship and an ATSA Pre-Doctoral Research Award, said, "I would suggest that people look for funding opportunities in their really specific area of research...[Doing] this made it feel like less work to frame my proposal to be relevant to the funding organization."
  • Alexandra Szabo, a History PhD student who received a Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellowship, said, "Just apply without questioning yourself...embrace rejection because it helps in perfecting proposals and also in understanding that rejection in academia is not personal, it's part of the process."

Check out this article on fellowship recipients for more information and great advice!

Visit our Fellowship and Grant Recipients page for a list of additional recent Brandeis recipients.

Meredith Monaghan (monaghan@brandeis.edu), the Director of Academic Fellowships for the Academic Services team, supports students applying for Boren Fellowships, Fulbright Study/Research Abroad AwardsFulbright Hays, Fulbright IIE, Critical Languages Scholarship, and the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program, among others. Email Meredith and set up a time to talk about preparing materials, especially personal statements and proposals.

The Mandel Center for the Humanities is currently providing exciting new funding opportunities for graduate students in the humanities, arts, and humanistic social sciences. These include research grants, dissertation writing retreats, and writing accountability groups for doctoral students. 

We have compiled this list in order to provide resources for GSAS students, but as the page links to many external websites, we cannot always be sure that all links are up-to-date. If you find a broken or incorrect link when using this page, please contact Abigail Arnold; however, please be sure to search the website linked to before determining that a link is incorrect.

Brandeis University Funds (Internal)

Funding Available Outside of Brandeis (External)