Deadline: October 15, 2026
Applications are open for the Big Ten Academic Alliance Smithsonian Fellowship 2026. The Big Ten Academic Alliance established in 1958, is a consortium of research universities that collaborate on a wide range of academic and administrative initiatives to advance their academic missions, generate unique opportunities for students and faculty, and serve the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs.
The goal of the program is to identify current students from Big Ten Academic Alliance universities who have been admitted into doctoral candidacy and satisfied all requirements except completion of dissertation. These doctoral candidates find appropriate advisers at the Smithsonian to conduct research and scholarship that will further the development of their respective theses.
Research Areas
Big Ten Academic Alliance applicants must propose research that is conducted at the Smithsonian in one of the following areas of research:
- Animal behavior, ecology, and environmental science, including an emphasis on the tropics
- Anthropology, including archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical anthropology
- Earth sciences and paleobiology
- Evolutionary & systematic biology
- Folklife
- History of science and technology
- History of art, especially American, contemporary, African, and Asian art, twentieth-century American crafts, and decorative arts
- Materials research
- Molecular biology
- Social and cultural history of the United States
Benefits
- Stipend: $45,000 per year
- Research Allowance: up to $5,000 per year
Stipends are prorated for periods of less than twelve months.
Eligibility
- Only students currently enrolled in one of the Big Ten Academic Alliance member universities are eligible.
- Students must have completed all course work for their programs, and must have been admitted into doctoral candidacy and satisfied all requirements except completion of the dissertation by the time their appointment begins in order to qualify.
- The program is open to US citizens and Non-US citizens.
- Applicants whose native language is not English are expected to have the ability to write and converse fluently in English. All application materials must be presented in English.
Application
All applications must be submitted by October 15, 2026 11:59 PM ET (enter 2027 for the cycle on the application) through the Smithsonian Academic Appointment System (SOLAA).
For more information, visit Big Ten Academic Alliance Smithsonian Fellowship.
