Graduate Student Fellowship Program

The Merck–MIT Graduate Student Fellowship Program solicits applications for the support of students carrying out cross-disciplinary research that spans fields of science, computation, and engineering related to computational and systems biology.

• The Merck–MIT Graduate Student Fellowship Program will provide two years of support (RA salary, tuition, and annual discretionary funds.)

• To be eligible, all candidates must have an appointment at MIT by the time of the award and an MIT faculty advisor at the time of the application. Students must have completed at least the first year of their graduate program and be engaged primarily in research. Applicants and their advisors must also be CSBi members. Membership in CSBi is self-determined based on a self-identified interest in computational and systems biology.

• Preference will be given to fellows engaged in cross-disciplinary research spanning fields of science, computation, and engineering, and especially to applicants working under the joint supervision of faculty from multiple departments.

• All selected fellows will be required to participate in an annual Merck–MIT meeting and upon request, provide the CSBi office with copies of pre-prints, publications, and poster presentations from the award period.

• The deadline for this cycle of applications is September 11, 2009. Two fellowships will be awarded. Decisions will be announced in October 2009, with funding to begin on October 1, 2009 and end on September 30, 2011.

• Application materials include face page, curriculum vitae (with publications), 250-word abstract, 4-page research proposal written by the applicant (1-inch margins, minimum 11-point font, single spaced), reprints/preprints, and three letters of recommendation from research supervisors, including your predoctoral advisor. The research proposal should outline the research to be performed during the fellowship period and include specific aims and a description of how the proposed research fits into the overall CSBi research objectives. Figures and references are not included in the 4-page limit.

• All application materials and recommendation letters must be submitted electronically as a pdf file to Nira Manokharan, csbi@mit.edu. Please contact Nira at 617-253-5977 for additional assistance.

To download a PDF application form, click here.