Lindt Dissertation Fellowship

Note: This is a final-year dissertation write-up fellowship. Applicants should intend to defend by the end of the award period, or shortly thereafter.

Eligibility

The Lindt Fellowship is open to registered students in the following departments within the Arts and Sciences: Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, and Sociology. The purpose of the Lindt Fellowship is to enable exceptionally well-qualified candidates for the PhD to complete the writing of their dissertations during the period of tenure. Thus, a Lindt Fellowship will not be awarded for the purpose of conducting research, either at home or abroad. To be eligible, a student must have been awarded the MPhil degree prior to the fellowship deadline; must not be beyond their seventh year of study at the time of the award; and must have completed all research for the dissertation before September 1 of the award year. Preference will be given to candidates who, in the judgment of the selection committee, can realistically expect to defend the dissertation before the end of their tenure as fellows.

The Award

The Lindt Fellowship provides a dissertation fellowship for the 2024-25 academic year. The 2024-25 award includes a stipend of $35,354, full-time matriculation and facilities tuition, and health fees.

Terms of the Award

The terms of the Lindt Fellowship prohibit grantees from holding teaching assignments or any other position concurrently. Lindt recipients are not eligible for other GSAS fellowships, including Core Preceptorships, after holding a Lindt Fellowship. The Lindt Fellowship may not be deferred.

How to Apply

Deadline: March 1, 2024, 1:00 pm ET

Only completed applications submitted by the deadline will be considered. Please read the directions and information carefully for the online application. The applicant must upload all items electronically with the exception of the letters of recommendation, which are uploaded by the recommenders or emailed to [email protected].

If you are applying to more than one fellowship through this application portal, you will need to upload all items for each fellowship application, and recommenders will have to submit a separate letter for each fellowship application. 

Applications must include the following items:

  • Completed GSAS online application form
     
  • An up-to-date GSAS transcript (official PDF transcript from the Registrar’s Office).

    Note: The GSAS Fellowship application does not accept encrypted files for upload. Official Columbia transcript PDFs are encrypted; you may order a paper copy through SSOL or print the official transcript PDF you receive from Parchment, then scan and upload it.
  • A curriculum vitae (three pages maximum).
     
  • A project proposal. The project proposal is a description of the dissertation project, with a working title, not to exceed 1,500 words. Margins should not be smaller than one inch and the font should not be smaller than 10 points. When writing the description, bear in mind that committee members are from various disciplines. Without sacrificing substance, please ensure that presentation of your project is accessible to readers who are not experts in your subject. If you want to submit images, there is a two-page limit. 
     
  • A detailed timetable for completion of the dissertation (two pages maximum)
     
  • Two letters of recommendation, one of which must be from your dissertation sponsor. Each recommender should describe the ways in which s/he considers your proposal to be exceptional and should endorse, with a fair degree of specificity, the timetable for completion. It would be most helpful if each recommender could comment on drafts of chapters already written. GSAS prefers that recommenders submit their letters of recommendation electronically to expedite processing. When the applicant enters the name and email of recommenders, the recommenders will automatically receive an email containing upload information and instructions. Applicants can resend a request by clicking on the "Send Reminder" button. It is the applicant's responsibility to make sure that recommenders are given ample time to submit recommendations by the deadline, and to notify recommenders if applying for more than one fellowship. 

Previous Recipients

For a list of previous recipients of the Lindt Fellowship, see Award and Prize Recipients.