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Summer Fellowship
10- or 12-week Paid Fellowships with a Dedicated Mentor
Applications are currently closed and will reopen in Fall 2023.
If you are interested in environmental health, that is, understanding what exposures people encounter in the environment that might make them sick, you have come to the right place! HEI is excited to launch its new Summer Fellowship Program for rising college juniors and seniors interested in studying environmental health, including environmental exposures, epidemiology, and public health. Fellowship opportunities include data analysis, field work, bench science, and modeling.
The Summer Fellowship program aims to encourage and support undergraduate students from backgrounds underrepresented in the environmental health sciences to explore research opportunities through a paid fellowship with a dedicated mentor. The 10- to 12-week fellowships during the Summer of 2023 are open to mentors and students based in the United States.
This program provides financial support for a summer fellowship in 2023 and is run in collaboration with the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES) and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) professional societies. We have formed a joint HEI/ISEE/ISES committee that will select prospective fellows and match them with mentors at academic organizations, nonprofit research institutions, and state or local governments. HEI intends to continue the fellowship program on an annual basis.
Fellowship Applications
Applicants are not required to have a background in life sciences but should be motivated to learn more about environmental health sciences as a potential career path. We have lined up an exciting list of 17 mentors across the United States who are excited to host fellows and share their knowledge and ideas and can give you a flavor of what environmental health research is like.
To be considered for this summer fellowship in 2023, you should be authorized to work in the United States and self-identify as coming from an underrepresented or disadvantaged background defined as follows:
1) Indigenous or underrepresented race or ethnicity group,
2) Individuals with disabilities (physical or mental impairments that substantially limit major life activities), or
3) Other socially disadvantaged groups (first-generation students, sexual orientation/gender identity, or others). Note that following the National Institutes of Health (NIH), women are not considered to be underrepresented in environmental health at the undergraduate level.
The fellowship application process is now open. Please review the list of opportunities, select 3 opportunities you are most interested in, and then follow this link to apply.
You can also download the application: 
Fellowship application (pdf)
Contact us at fellowship@healtheffects.org if you have questions.
The deadline for applying is February 1, 2023.
We expect to select 4 fellows and match them with a mentor of their choice. Stipends will be $6,500 for a 10- to 12-week fellowship to cover travel, housing, and other expenses. To foster connections among fellows, we will plan several activities throughout the program, including a kick-off meeting with the 4 selected fellows and their mentors. We will also invite fellows to present the results of their summer research project during a webinar at the end of the program. Fellows will be asked to write a brief summary of their summer experience so that we can learn and make improvements to the program as we continue over the next years.
Evaluation Process
We have formed a joint selection committee to evaluate all applications. The committee includes HEI staff and members of the ISEE and ISES professional societies. Depending on the number of applications, we will expand the selection committee to make sure each application is read by 2 or 3 reviewers. Evaluations will be based on an applicant’s goals and motivation to pursue environmental health research, description of how the fellowship provides an opportunity not otherwise available, background and academic progress, and current skills and those the applicant would like to acquire. Top applications will be reviewed by the mentors identified by those applicants to ensure a good fit with the project. A final selection of 4 applicants will be made by the joint selection committee. Decisions will be made in mid to late March 2023.
Fellowship Mentors
Seventeen researchers at academic and nonprofit research institutions and at state and local governments have volunteered to serve as mentors and host an undergraduate student in their group during the Summer of 2023.
Read more about the mentor opportunities here, or you can download the information: List of mentors (pdf)
Each mentor has indicated what the fellow can expect in terms of the research environment, who will supervise them and how often, how many fellow students they may interact with, which portions of research and meetings will be in person versus remote, and whether the institution can provide additional support (for example, housing).
Please review the list carefully and select 3 opportunities in which you are interested. The list is organized by geographic location, recognizing that it might be easier to attend an opportunity closer to where you live. In addition to the project itself, you should consider other factors that could help determine what might be a great opportunity for you, such as what portion will be remote versus in person and how many other students and researchers there are in the lab.
Joint Committee
HEI, ISEE, and ISES have formed a joint committee to manage the fellowship program. HEI thanks both societies for their support and time and prospective mentors for taking these summer fellows under their wing. Members of the joint Committee are as follows:
Christine Ekenga, Emory University and ISES Diversity Committee
Donghai Liang, Emory University and ISES Diversity Committee
Sarah Dee, International Society of Exposure Science
Beate Ritz, University of California—Los Angeles and ISEE Capacity Building and Education Committee (CAPE)
Carrie Breton, University of Southern California and ISEE North America Chapter Executive Council
Additional support is provided by Ellen Mantus, Elise Elliott, Allison Patton, Annemoon van Erp, and Ada Wright at HEI.
Other Resources
What is environmental health science?
Environmental health sciences evaluate which factors in the environment that people encounter might contribute to making them sick. At HEI we focus on health effects of air pollution and hydraulic fracturing, but there are many more factors that are himportant. Many scientific disciplines, including epidemiology, exposure science, and toxicology, contribute to our understanding of those factors. The links below provide further information about environmental health and how to pursue a career in this area.
https://www.publichealthonline.org/environmental-health-science/
https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/science/index.cfm
https://explorehealthcareers.org/career/public-health/environmental-health-sciences/
Related fellowships and travel awards
If you have not found a suitable opportunity in our list, we invite you to explore other opportunities below. Some organizations provide support for traveling to professional conferences to present research results.
Internships and Fellowships
https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp
https://www.apha.org/Professional-Development/APHA-Internships-and-Fellowships
https://www.toxicology.org/awards/sot/student-award-faqs.asp
https://www.rti.org/internships
Travel Awards
https://www.iseeconference.org/registration-hotels-and-travel/isee-registration-and-travel-awards/
https://intlexposurescience.org/2022-conference-awards-accepting-applications-now/
https://awards.setac.org/setac-acs-environmental-graduate-exchange/
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| List of mentors (pdf) | 293.45 KB |
| Fellowship application (pdf) | 84.9 KB |
