Dissertation Writing Fellowship

In an effort to support UConn graduate students writing doctoral dissertations with a human rights focus, the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute will select one $5,000 dissertation fellowship awardee for the 2025-26 academic year.

2024 Dissertation Writing Fellowship Recipient

Grace Felten
Ph.D. Candidate, School of Social Work

"Striving to Fill in the Gaps: Relying on NGOs and Volunteers to Provide Services and Fulfill the Rights of Refugees in Greece"

Grace Felten is a PhD candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut with research interests in migration, gender equality, human rights, and informal humanitarianism. She is completing her dissertation on exploring the reliance on volunteers and NGOs working with refugees in Greece with an emphasis on health, especially the reproductive health of migrant women. This work grew out of her time as a central part of a UConn research team exploring citizen mobilization for refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, examining voluntarism as a response to the political climate.

 

Former Recipients

2023

  • Eilyn Lombard
    Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages
    "Power, Performance, and Poetry in Latin America (1970-2020)"

2022

  • Imge Akaslan
    Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science
    "Global Labor Rights Enforcement in Small and Medium-sized Textile Firms – Lessons from Turkey"

2021

  • Shamayeta Bhattacharya
    Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography
    "SHAKTHI: Substantive Health and Human-rights Access among Kothi, Transgender, and Hijra Individuals"

Eligibility Criteria

  1. Open to UConn doctoral students (ABD) in all disciplines from any UConn campus.
  2. Applicants must have successfully defended a dissertation prospectus by time of application.
  3. Applicants must be actively writing their dissertation.
  4. Students may receive this award once during their tenure in the Ph.D. program.
  5. In any given year, a student may receive either the Dissertation Research Fellowship or the Dissertation Writing Fellowship, but not both.

How to Apply

Access the application via Microsoft Forms. The application requires the following materials:

  1. Narrative description of the dissertation project (five pages, double spaced, 12 point font) that includes:
    1. What are the basic ideas, problems, works, or questions the study will examine? What is the planned approach or line of thought?
    2. What contribution is the project likely to make to the field of human rights?
    3. How does this fit with HRI’s mission?
  2. Detailed timeline of the plan for completion of your doctoral dissertation (no more than one page), describing precisely where you are in your analysis and writing process, what remains to be done, and when you will do it.
  3. One-page bibliography for the project
  4. Current CV
  5. Unofficial transcript
  6. Statement from your advisor/dissertation supervisor or a faculty member supervising your research, detailing how the funding will advance the completion of your dissertation. The committee encourages letters that include specific illustrations of your achievements and your capacity to contribute to human rights scholarship and activity. The statement should be submitted electronically via: https://forms.office.com/r/uNhcjRgDsi.

 Application Deadline for 2025: April 1st

Evaluation of Applications

The dissertation project should demonstrate overall excellence with a focus on human rights issues, understood broadly. Projects should make a significant contribution to ongoing scholarly, policy, or practice debates in the field of human rights. Priority will be given to applications that evidence human rights coursework and/or prior substantive human rights engagement.

All proposals will be reviewed and ranked by a multidisciplinary review committee chaired by the Director of Graduate Programs, and comprised of members of the Gladstein Human Rights Committee.