Applications for the 2025 cohort will open on 17 January 2025
About the Next Generation Fellowship
The UCAR Next Generation graduate Fellowship is a prestigious, multi-faceted opportunity to explore the interplay between the areas of Earth System Science research and its impact on society.
Fellows engage with, and learn from UCAR’s leaders in these four arenas while participating in dedicated professional development and leadership training opportunities.
Each Fellow receives a $40,000 Fellowship over two years ($10,000 twice per year); Fellowship Visits that entail up to 20 weeks of paid research trip to Boulder, CO or Washington, D.C. or other agreed upon location; funding to attend conferences, professional coaching; and the support of a like minded cohort.
The primary goals of this program are to facilitate engaged, motivated “Next Generation” students in exploring the intersections between science and society and to support Fellows in becoming change-makers in the field of atmospheric and Earth System Sciences.
The Next Generation Fellowship facilitates an equitable collaboration between a graduate student (the Fellow) and their track mentors (UCAR/NSF NCAR experts). Fellows are responsible for leading the work pursued during their Fellowship, and have considerable freedom to build interdisciplinary knowledge and collaborations.
How the Fellowship Functions
The Next Generation Fellowship program recruits graduate students into a specific Fellowship tracks on which they will focus, although interdisciplinary exploration is encouraged:
- Science Research
- Public Policy
- Workplace Culture and Development
- Transdisciplinary and Convergence Research
Although each Fellowship experience is customized for the individual Fellow as much as possible, the overall Fellowship experience follows a similar arc. During the academic year, most Fellows meet occasionally with their track mentors to build a relationship and share ideas for how they would like to collaborate. Meanwhile, Fellows participate in bi-monthly professional and cohort development activities (all virtual). During each summer of their Fellowship, Fellows will usually travel to Boulder or Washington DC (policy Fellows) and spend 8-12 weeks working side by side with their track mentors and other UCAR/NSF NCAR experts.
