Student Fellowship Program

Hopkins Population Center Summer Student Fellowship Program for PAA Paper Proposals

Overview

The Hopkins Population Center (HPC) Summer Student Fellowship Program for Population Association of America (PAA) Paper Proposals supports the effort of PhD students’ research on one or more of the Hopkins Population Center’s primary research areas for the US population (described below). The Summer Student Fellowship Program aims to open the opportunity for PhD students under the supervision of an HPC Associate. The program will increase visibility and extend the external research network for our students in the scientific workforce pipeline.

With the fellowship, student recipients can benefit from summer research time to complete work on a paper to submit to the PAA Annual Conference for the September 2023 deadline. If the submission is accepted for the PAA Conference – either as a session presentation or as a poster – the awardee will be eligible for a HPC travel allowance to attend PAA in Spring 2024, to be held in Columbus, Ohio. More broadly, the fellowship will help develop the student dissertation research at the beginning of the population health science pipeline.

Deadline: February 27, 2023.

Award announcement: March 31, 2023

Project Period: Summer months of 2023 and presentation at PAA in Spring 2024

Fellowship Amount

We expect to fund two fellowships for the 2023 cycle. Each summer fellow will receive $5,000 for the summer months in 2023, and coverage of PAA presentation expenses is capped at $1,000.

Research Priorities

The proposed research must align with one or more of the Population Center’s primary research areas: poverty and inequality; sexual and reproductive health; and family, maternal and child health. Population Research at the HPC uses social science approaches to population-based studies, often with large samples, observed one or more times. These are not typically intervention or clinical studies. See the 2022 PAA program for examples of papers that are typically presented at the meeting (https://paa.confex.com/paa/2022/meetingapp.cgi/Home/0). If you have questions about the appropriateness of your research topic, please contact Alison Gemmill (agemmill@jhu.edu).

PhD student applicants can receive one HPC Summer Fellowship during their PhD program. Students from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply.

Eligibility Criteria

  • The applicant must be in good standing by the department standard.
  • The applicant must have completed at least one year of study in a PhD program at JHU and can demonstrate readiness for executing an independent research paper for external presentation, as endorsed by the HPC Faculty Associate who will supervise the work.
  • The applicant must work under the supervision of an HPC Faculty Associate.
  • Students are not eligible if they are expected to graduate by June 2023.

Proposal Materials

The fellowship proposal should be no more than two (2) single-spaced text pages, 11-point Arial font, half-inch margin. It includes the following sections:

  1. Draft title of planned PAA paper
  2. Research question and objectives of the paper
  3. Description of data source and analytical approach
  4. Preliminary analysis (if any)
  5. References (not included in two-page limit)
  6. Student’s curriculum vitae
  7. A copy of an email from your HPC Associate sponsor sent to you that acknowledges they will serve as your sponsor. (For example, “I agree to serve as a faculty sponsor for (student name) for their project titled (title of project) and confirm that they are in good academic standing.”)

Review and Decision

Applications will be reviewed by a panel of 5 selected HPC associates to select two fellowship recipients. Awards will be announced on March 31, 2023.

Interim and Final  Reports

By the end of the summer 2023, the student recipients should file a final report of one paragraph by email message to Dr. Alison Gemmill about the plan to submit a paper to the 2024 Annual PAA meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

After the Spring 2024 PAA meeting, awardees will present their project to the HPC Associates as the final report.

Visit the application form at the following website, where you will be asked to upload your application materials as a single PDF document: https://forms.office.com/r/MgRQCqyrWD

Students must submit their application by Monday, February 27, 2023. A copy of the application will be automatically forwarded to the student’s HPC Faculty Associate sponsor.

Further Information

If you have questions, please contact Dr. Alison Gemmill (agemmill@jhu.edu).