The Graduate School Creates Innovative Funding Opportunities

In the last two years, the Graduate School has announced three new grant and fellowship programs to help graduate students get back on track with their research. Working with Associate Director of Grants and Fellowships, Graduate Dean Jacqueline Urla has put an emphasis on creating innovative funding in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as rapidly-changing social, political, and environmental circumstances.

Return to Research Grants

When the global COVID-19 pandemic hit, many graduate students found that their research came to a complete stop. Some, such as those working in labs on campus, were able to resume their work, although at a delayed pace. For others, however, research remains stopped: Archives closed, travel to research sites was not allowed, and research with human subjects became severely limited.

The roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine made it likely that graduate students could resume their research activities. In response, on February 2, 2021, the Graduate School created the Return to Research Grant Program that provided immediate and flexible financial support to graduate students. Grants of up to $5,000 supported activities related to dissertation data collection and analysis, such as travel to field sites, archives, or collections.

Dissertation Completion Fellowship

As part of its multi-year initiative to assist graduate students in recovering from delays prompted by COVID-19, the Graduate School announced a new Dissertation Completion Fellowship for Spring 2022.

The Dissertation Completion Fellowship provided a $12,000 stipend for Spring 2022 for students who needed a work-free semester to complete their writing and defend their dissertation. The Graduate School awarded 18 fellowships to UMass doctoral candidates in campus-based degree programs.

Rapid Research Grants

On September 19, 2022, the Graduate School announced an innovative new grant program that will provide financial support to graduate students conducting time-sensitive, cutting-edge research. Graduate School Rapid Research Grants will award up to $1,000 to doctoral and MFA students for costs associated with data collection.

Dean Urla described the Rapid Research Grant Program as an opportunity for graduate student research to evolve in the face of rapidly-changing social, political, and environmental circumstances. “A single unanticipated event can drastically impact a student’s pre-planned research trajectory. We know our graduate students are nimble, creative, thoughtful researchers and these grants will allow them to respond to opportunities as they arise.”

NSF GRFP Fellowship Awardees since 2018

Luis Aguirre

Rico Charles Angell

Estefany Argueta Herrera

Bridget Benner

Brooke Burrows

Rachel Bell Burten

Stephanie Nicole Call

Seanne Reyes Clemente

Sarah Christine Deckel

Trisha Ann Dehrone

Brennan Falcy

Grazielle Figueredo

Annabelle Flores-Bonilla

Gorana Gonzalez

Helene Grogan

Priscilla Hernandez

Lars Howell

Rebecca Elizabeth Huber

Julian Killingback

Mary Elizabeth deVaux Lee-Trimble

Tailynn Yevette McCarty

Samantha McComb

Joshua Jeffrey Medina

Demi Elana Kristeller Moed

Anissa Nicole Neal

Katherine Shannon Otter

Adrian Rivera-Rodriguez

Tannuja Devi Rozario

Mary Chase Sheehan

Kaitlyn Suarez

Maina Handmaker

Office of Inclusion and Engagement News

Arrivals and Departures

In December 2021, Funmi Ayobami accepted a faculty position at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Ayobami was the inaugural Assistant Dean of the Office of Inclusion (OIE) and Engagement when it officially opened its doors in 2018. Dr. Ayobami was a beloved mentor who shepherded the start of our Spaulding-Smith and REAL fellowship programs. Dean Urla took the opportunity to reorganize and expand support for OIE, and in September 2021, invited Dr. Wilmore Webley (Microbiology), to be the new Associate Dean of OIE. Dr. Webley has been a champion of holistic admissions and helped set in place a more robust system of recruitment of underrepresented students. After 18 months of exceptional service, he was promoted to Senior Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion, starting January 2023. We are pleased to welcome Professor Sofiya Alhassan (Kinesiology) as the new Associate Dean

Fellowships Awarded

Since 2018

REAL Fellows: 187

Spaulding-Smith Fellows: 160

Dean Urla said, “I am pleased at the growing support for DEI in Academic Affairs and thrilled to have Dr. Alhassan join the Graduate School as our new Associate Dean of Inclusion and Engagement. Professor Webley had a transformational impact on OIE and we know Professor Alhassan will as well. An experienced Graduate Program Director in Kinesiology, she brings a passionate commitment to the mentoring of graduate students of color that will be of great value to our whole campus.”

Who was Ronald McNair?

The McNair Scholars Program embraces and honors the legacy and high achievement standards of Dr. Ronald E. McNair, an expert in laser physics, a graduate of MIT and the second African American selected by NASA for the space shuttle program to fly into space on February 3rd, 1984.

Dr. McNair was the mission specialist of the ill-fated U.S. Challenger space shuttle, which exploded one minute, thirteen seconds after launching on January 28th, 1986, killing everyone on board.

Dr. McNair was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and members of Congress provided funding for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program with the goal of helping college students from underrepresented ethnic or racial groups, low-income, and first-generation college students, pursue an academic career.

The National Names Exchange

In addition to McNair partnerships, we can thank Associate Dean Webley for incorporating UMass Amherst in theNational Name Exchange(NNE). The NNE was founded in 1976 as a consortium of over 50 nationally-recognized universities, which collect and share the names of their talented, underrepresented ethnic minority students in their sophomore, junior, and senior years of college. Being a part of the NNE means that UMass departments will be able to do recruitment outreach to the over 4000 undergraduate students from over 80 colleges and universities who sign up for the NNE.

OIE runs workshops and provides customized guidance for departments on effective recruitment strategies, holistic admissions and retention of URM and firstgeneration students.