Below is a list of grants, fellowships, and other funding sources that current and former CEB students have utilized to assist with research, fieldwork, and conference expenses. Please also note that UChicagoGRAD maintains a Fellowship Database; for assistance identifying and applying for relevant funding opportunities, we encourage you to schedule an appointment with a grad advisor.
| American Museum of Natural History / Frank M. Chapman Award | Chapman Grants provide modest short-term awards (averaging $1,000, yet sometimes as large as $3,000) to advanced graduate students for research in ornithology. |
| American Museum of Natural History / Graduate Student Fellowships | Seed research grants are available for field-based research, as well as to use the AMNH collections. Additionally, the Kade Fellowship supports graduate student exchanges between AMNH and French or German institutions. |
| American Ornithological Society Awards | AOS offers a variety of direct funding opportunities to graduate students, including support for society membership, travel awards, and research grants. |
| American Philosophical Society / Lewis & Clark Fund | The Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research encourages exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data. They invite applications from a variety of disciplines including (but not limited to) biology, ecology, geology, paleontology, and population genetics. |
| American Society of Mammalogists | ASM offers financial support to graduate students engaged in research on mammals. Awards provide funding for research projects, graduate training, and presentation of research results at the annual conference. |
| American Society of Naturalists / Student Research Awards | Awards support student research that advances the conceptual unification of ecology, evolution, or behavior; laboratory, field, and theoretical projects are encouraged. Applicants must have advanced to PhD candidacy, and be at least one year from completion. |
| Animal Behavior Society / Student Research Grants | Awards support graduate student research in the field of animal behavior, including conservation-related research, cetacean behavior, and conservation, and applied behavioral studies. |
| Conchologists of America | Grants of up to $2,500 are given to qualified graduate students undertaking field or laboratory research on recent or fossil mollusks, and other molluscan-related projects. |
| Entomological Society of America / Student Awards | Annual awards recognize students with notable contributions to entomology and provide funding for research, leadership, and travel. |
| Entomological Society of America / Systematics Evolution & Biodiversity Awards | Awards focus on research in arthropod morphology, systematics, taxonomy, or evolution; support internships with entomological collections; and provide funding for fieldwork. |
| Environmental Protection Agency | A variety of grants supporting research aimed at protecting human health and the environment. |
| Evolving Earth Foundation | Provides 10 grants annually, for amounts up to $3,000, to support student research focused on increasing understanding of geologic and biologic processes that shape our earth. |
| The Explorers Club | Grants support exploration and field research across a wide array of disciplines, e.g., climate change, geoscience, paleoclimate, marine science/biology, oceans/rivers/lakes, plants and molds, and conservation science. |
| Faculty for the Future Fellowship / Schlumberger Foundation | This program awards fellowships to women from developing and emerging economies to pursue PhDs and post-docs in STEM disciplines at academic institutions worldwide. |
| 500 Women Scientists / Fellowship for the Future | A 2-year leadership award for women of color in STEM, leading research or outreach projects focused on increasing equity, inclusion, accessibility, or social justice in STEM. |
| Ford Foundation Fellowships | Fellowships support leadership development, scholarships, exchanges, and academic training aimed at reducing poverty and injustice, strengthening democratic values, promoting international cooperation, and advancing human achievement. |
| Graduate Women In Science (GWIS) National Fellowship Program | Fellowships help increase knowledge in the natural sciences, and encourage women to pursue academic and professional careers in the sciences. |
| Instrumentl / Wildlife Grants | A variety of grants are available, providing funding for wildlife conservation and wildlife research. |
| Mellon Mays Predoctoral Research Grants / SSRC | Grants provide funding for doctoral research, travel, subscriptions and books, and research equipment. (Please note: these grants only are available to PhD students who were selected as Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows.) |
| Museum of Comparative Zoology [Harvard] / Ernst Mayr Travel Grants | Grants are awarded for research in animal systematics, to stimulate taxonomic work on neglected taxa. Funding covers travel, lodging, and meals for up to a few weeks, specifically for conducting research at museums. |
| The National Academies / Policy Graduate Fellowship Program | The Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program enables early-career scholars to spend 12 weeks at the Academies in Washington, DC, learning about science and technology policy and the role that scientists and engineers play in advising the nation. |
| National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) | NDSEG fellowships are awarded to applicants pursuing a doctoral degree in one of 15 disciplines, including biosciences, geosciences, computer and computational sciences, and behavioral sciences. |
| National Geographic Society | Grants support novel and exploratory projects in conservation, education, research, storytelling, or technology, aligned with three focus areas: wildlife, and the local evolutionary and ecological processes that sustain them; our human journey, who we are, and what the future may hold; and how Earth's dynamic terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems manifest on our changing planet. |
| National Science Foundation / Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) | The GRFP provides support for graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, who are pursuing research-based Master's and doctoral degrees at US institutions. |
| Pacific Northwest Shell Club | An annual scholarship provides support to students studying Pacific Northwest mollusks. The research should be malacological in nature and advance our understanding of mollusks or their role in their environment. |
| The Rufford Foundation / Grants for Nature Conservation | A UK-registered charity which funds nature conservation projects across the developing world. |
| Sigma Xi / Grants in Aid of Research Program | The Society awards grants up to $1,000 to cover travel expenses to/from a research site, as well as purchase non-standard equipment needed to complete specific research projects. (3/1 and 10/1 deadlines annually) |
| Society for the Study of Evolution | Graduate Research Excellence Grants are available to early PhD students, and advanced PhD students, to support data collection, analysis, and fieldwork. |
| The Society of Systematic Biologists | Awards acknowledge outstanding student presentations and publications in the field of systematics, as well as providing funding to visit field collection sites and museums. |
| Systematics Research Fund | Administered jointly by the Linnean Society and the Systematics Association, the fund supports fieldwork expenditures, purchase of scientifc equipment, specimen preparation, and contributions to publication costs. |
| UNCF/Merck Graduate Science Research Dissertation | Dedicated to the training and development of African-American biomedical scientists, each award provides up to $35,000, which includes up to $25,000 towards tuition, room and board, and billable fees. |
| USAID Research and Innovation Fellowships | Connects students with in-country host organizations to collaboratively apply science, technology, and innovation to complex development challenges. |
| Funding supports and promotes research on UCMP's collections, particularly those of Mesozoic vertebrates from the Colorado Plateau. | |
| Western Society of Malacologists | The James H. McLean Student Grant in Collections-Based Research supports travel costs for collections-based projects focused on extant or fossil western North American mollusks. |
| Wilson Ornithological Society | The Society offers five categories of research grants, in addition to travel and publication awards. Grant recipients report research results at the Society's annual meeting, and provide a summary write-up for their website. |