Information for Summer Research Fellowship Advisors/Administrators

Every student who applies for a Summer Research Fellowship must have a faculty advisor to oversee his or her project. We expect that advisors of fellowship students will have substantial contact with the student during the course of their summer research. Please note: as the Summer Research Fellowship competition has grown more competitive, the Letter of Collaboration from the advisor assumes more importance. Your Letter of Collaboration can make an important difference.

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Advisors:

-give feedback to the student as she or he drafts the Summer Research Fellowship proposal
-write a Letter of Collaboration to the Fellowship selection committee to accompany the student's grant proposal.

The Letter of Collaboration comments not only on the student's abilities but also specifics on the mentoring process: the research expectations for the student; how the relationship between mentor and student will be structured and defined; how often mentor and student will meet; if there are graduate student mentors involved; who will take over if the mentor is out of town for a short time; the timetable of the project; and the nature of the student's contribution.

The Letter of Collaboration also states that the proposed project is feasible and worthwhile and that the student is capable of pursuing the research.

Please see information from Enhancing Education at Carnegie Mellon.

The advisor will also sign off on the Final Report Form upon completion of the project.

Committee Review:

Summer Research Fellowship proposals are read and rated by a selection committee of faculty representing all the colleges on campus. Proposals will always be read by at least one faculty member within the student's college, and will also be read by faculty who are not trained in the student's academic field. For this reason, we advise students to write their proposals in a way that an educated reader outside their field of study can understand the research question and the significance of the proposed research.

Notification:

Students and their advisors are notified of the selection committee's decisions by email within a month of the Summer Research Fellowship proposal deadline.

Disbursement of Funds:

If a student is awarded a Summer Research Fellowship, the funds are dispersed to students on a bi-weekly pay schedule, with applicable taxes taken out. The faculty advisor and business manager will each need to sign a copy of the student's contract upon acceptance of the fellowship stipend. The business managers and advisors will sign off on the students' timecards and process to payroll. The stipend is intended to cover ten weeks of full-time research (37.5 hours per week) at the rate of $9.33 per hour. If you have any question about this procedure, please contact Jen Weidenhof, Program Manager of the Undergradutate Research Office: 8-5702 or jweidenh@andrew.cmu.edu.

Final Report:

Upon completion of the project, students must submit a Final Report Form which is available from the Undergraduate Research Office. The advisor must sign this form indicating that the research project was completed.

Contact Us:

If you have any questions about these expectations or anything else about the Summer Research Fellowship program, please feel free to contact Stephanie Wallach, Director, at sw4s@andrew.cmu.edu, or Jennifer Keating-Miller, Associate Director, at jkeating@andrew.cmu.edu.