Last updated on March 21, 2015
For those of you who (i) are thinking of going to graduate school, (ii) have an interest in food security, and (iii) happen to be US citizens (seriously, this is a real requirement; the last time I talked about this, I had about a dozen inquiries from non-US citizens…), I still have one, possibly two National Needs Fellowships from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture‘s (NIFA) to award to prospective PhD students with an interest in food security. Thanks to our department’s rolling admissions deadline, it is not too late for you to apply for those fellowships. If you are interested, however, I urge you to (i) let me know via email as soon as possible, and (ii) apply as soon as possible for admission in September, since the funds have to be awarded before July 1, 2015.
Each fellowship provides the recipient with a three-year fellowship. The theme of the grant is food security broadly defined. So for example, a fellow could study any aspect of food security, from undernutrition in sub-Saharan Africa to food stamps in the US, and everything else in between. That said, for students interested in international development, the grant does include some money for international travel–not enough to fund data collection, but enough to fund exploratory field visits.
For a period of three years, a fellow will not have to work as research or teaching assistants, the only requirement being that they work on their own, food security-related research. To help them in that process, I will be assigned as faculty mentor to each fellow at the beginning of their studies at the University of Minnesota. We are primarily interested in students interested in academic or policy research careers. One of those fellowships was awarded last year; I would be happy to put you in touch with the recipient if you would like to know of her experiences.
Again, if you are interested, know that this is for people interested in beginning their PhD in September 2015, let me know of your interest as soon as possible, and apply in the next month or so.