2024-2025 Student Fellowship Call for Applications
Applications are now open for the 2024-2025 academic year.
THE PETRIE-FLOM CENTER
STUDENT FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM, 2023-2024
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Learn more about the Student Fellowship experience:
Check out 2015-2016 Student Fellow Michael Anne Kyle's reflections on her fellowship year, "Academic Immersion" and 2016-2017 Student Fellow Shailin Thomas's personal testimonial on his fellowship experience!
The Center and Student Fellowship
The Center and Student Fellowship. The Petrie-Flom Center Student Fellowship Program is designed to mentor students seeking to become thought leaders in health law policy and bioethics. The fellowship supports closely-mentored student research in health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics and trains students to take advantage of online publishing to promote their scholarship. Students Fellows will receive mentoring for their projects from Harvard Law affiliated faculty, invitations to workshop their research with like-minded, passionate peers, and training in how to promote their online brand. For more information on our recent fellows and their work, see our website and check out their writing on the Petrie-Flom Center’s blog, Bill of Health.
The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics is an interdisciplinary research program at Harvard Law School dedicated to the scholarly research of major topics at the intersection of law and health policy, including issues of health care financing, market regulation, biotechnology, biomedical research, intellectual property, global health, and bioethics.
Eligibility
The student fellowship program is open to all Harvard graduate students who will be enrolled at the University during the fellowship year and who are committed to undertaking a significant research project and fulfilling other program requirements. Although the fellowship is open to all graduate students, including those in one-year programs, we encourage those who are in multi-year programs to wait until after their first year to apply. Students enrolled in the JD program at Harvard Law School will not be accepted for the fellowship during their 1L year.
Requirements
All student fellows will have the following responsibilities:
Writing Requirement
Student fellows will conduct independent research projects designed to lead to publishable articles in their fields. Fellowship papers must be single-authored. Fellows are expected to produce at least one such paper by the end of the academic year, with various deadlines for drafts throughout Fall and Spring. Papers written in connection with the fellowship can be used to satisfy the law school’s third-year written work requirement or other optional writing credit by prior arrangement with and final approval of a faculty advisor who has agreed to supervise a fellow’s work for this purpose. For Harvard Law School students: HLS policy prevents us from paying a stipend to students who receive academic credit for their fellowship paper; HLS students who elect to receive academic credit for work completed as part of the fellowship must forego the stipend. Satisfaction of writing requirements or granting credits at other Harvard schools will depend on the policies of each school/program; it is up to the student fellow to manage this process.
Blogging Requirement
Student fellows will be expected to post on the Petrie-Flom Center’s blog, Bill of Health, at least once every other week during the Fall and Spring semesters and during Winter term, with four passes available for the full academic year. Topics are self-determined; posts are subject to final approval by the Petrie-Flom Center, and are usually 800–1200 words. The Petrie-Flom Center Communications Manager will provide mentorship and training on producing scholarly writing for the internet, as well as training on promoting an online brand.
Curricular Component
Student fellows are required to enroll in the Health Law, Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology Workshop at HLS. The workshop is intended to provide student fellows with opportunities to interact with leading scholars in the fields of health law and policy, with the expectation that these interactions will further enhance and inform their research and academic development. The Workshop will meet during the Fall semester (exact date and time will be available in the HLS course catalog). Fellowship awardees will have priority enrollment.
For the 2024-25 year, HLS students enrolled in the student fellowship are also strongly encouraged to enroll in Professor Cohen’s Fall/Spring 1-credit writing group. This is a small group course that will give Student Fellows the opportunity to work on their fellowship project. In order to take this course students must also take 2 or 3 credits of independent writing (aka Option 1 Writing Requirement) for their Petrie-Flom paper. These writing credits may be assigned to either the J-term or Spring-term. Unfortunately, this course is not open to non-HLS students.
Presentations and Events
Student fellows are expected to attend lunch sessions with Center affiliates and may be asked to present their research. Student fellows may be asked to assist with panels and conferences organized by the Center, including organizing and reporting on events for Center publications.
These requirements are non-negotiable. Student fellows must fulfill all requirements in order to remain in the fellowship and receive the stipend.
Resources
In addition to close mentorship, the Center will award each fellow a $1,500 stipend, paid at the end of the academic year once all fellowship requirements (including submission of an acceptable paper) are completed. Note that some schools/programs, including Harvard Law School, will not allow students to receive both academic credit and a stipend; in such cases, fellows must choose either academic credit or the stipend.
Fellows may be eligible to request additional funding to cover reasonable costs associated with their research projects (e.g., copying, publications, conference fees, travel).
Please note: Student Fellowship stipends are considered taxable income. Students are responsible for self-reporting stipends to the IRS when they file their taxes. Since this income is self-reported, Harvard Law School will not provide any tax documentation. For more information see the Harvard University Office of the Comptroller’s guidelines.
Application
Harvard Law School students may apply for priority consideration by submitting their fellowship applications by 5pm on Friday, May 24, 2024. HLS students will receive notice of whether they have been accepted or deferred to the general applicant pool by June 17, 2024. We strongly encourage HLS students to take advantage of priority consideration.
For all Harvard University graduate students, including Law School students who choose to submit after May 24, fellowship applications will be accepted until 5pm on Friday, August 2, 2024. Notifications of awards will be made by August 26, 2024, to enable enrollment in the Workshop.
To apply, email the following to petrie-flom@law.harvard.edu:
- Your curriculum vitae;
- A proposal describing the research and writing project you intend to pursue (1500-word maximum); and
- A digital copy of your most current transcript (which need not be official).
The most successful research proposals will describe an idea and novel contribution, rather than simply a topic of interest. We recognize that students will be applying from a range of disciplines, which we strongly encourage; thus, we will account for a student’s field and typical standards for work in their discipline when evaluating applications.
Contact
For further questions, contact Laura Chong, Financial and Administrative Director, lchong@law.harvard.edu.