Required criteria for applicants

• Be a candidate for a Ph.D. degree at a graduate school in the United States.
• Fulfill all pre-dissertation requirements by December 31 of the year applying, including approval of the dissertation proposal with the expectation that the dissertation will be completed no later than July of the year following the fellowship grant year.
• Must not have received a similar grant or fellowship for the writing of the dissertation. Fellows may not accept other awards that provide similar benefits in the same academic year. We anticipate that with funding from Lake Institute, you will be able to complete and defend your dissertation during the fellowship year. If you are receiving a full stipend from your school, we ask that you bank or postpone it to accept the Lake Fellowship. Smaller awards and/or those involving limited opportunities to teach may be permitted, at the discretion of the Research Advisory Committee of Lake Institute on Faith & Giving.
• Submit application and other requested documents by January 31.

Fellowship benefits

• Receive three award payments totaling $30,000 
• Be invited to special research-focused Lake Institute engagements 
• Have the opportunity to take advantage of Lake Institute’s resources and expertise 
• Share your research through our website and citations in our seminars 

How to apply

To apply, please fill out the online form, upload the required documents, have your letters of recommendation uploaded and send an official transcript (unofficial transcripts are also accepted). All application materials must be received by January 17. Applications must include the following: 

• Application form 

• Resume/CV 

• Fellowship Proposal: In your proposal of no more than seven pages (double-spaced, 12-point font), articulate the thesis of your dissertation, summarizing the argument, methodology, and current findings. In addition, discuss the relevance and contribution of your topic for the understanding of an important question(s) or issue(s) related to religion and philanthropy/faith and giving. Please write this executive summary so that scholars outside of your discipline would not have difficulty comprehending your proposal. 

• Copy of the approved dissertation proposal. 

• A selected bibliography: Compile a curated Bibliography (2-3 pages, double-spaced) indicating the major theoretical, practical and critical works that bear on your dissertation. This means you should include those works that most clearly demonstrate your command of the scholarship necessary to write the proposed dissertation. In most cases this will already be part of your proposal. 

• A timetable: Detailing your chapter outline, your progress to date, and your schedule for the fellowship year. It should be no longer than one page, double-spaced. 

• Two letters of recommendation: One from your dissertation director and another from a faculty member familiar with your work. Share this link with recommenders to upload letters. 

• Official or Unofficial Transcript from the graduate school which will award the Ph.D. degree. Transcripts must be uploaded along with the other documents. 

2024 Lake Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Recipients

Mélena Laudig is a PhD Candidate in Religion at Princeton University, where she is also pursuing certificates from the Department of African American Studies and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her dissertation project, “‘Her Country’s Children’: African American Religion and Childhood in Slavery and Freedom,” examines how religious communities, institutions, and cultures shaped the experiences of Black American children during the long nineteenth century. She earned a Master of Arts in Religion from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Yale College.

Hannah Grace Howard is a PhD Candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at Boston University. Broadly, her research concerns the evolving, and sometimes unexpected, social and political action of Orthodox Christians in places where the national, the ethnic, and the religious have long been braided together. Her dissertation, Liturgical Care: Theological & Political Belonging in Athenian Greek Orthodox Charity, specifically explores a puzzling fact: in the humanitarian aid-saturated context of Athens, the Orthodox Church of Greece continues to offer highly local, unscalable aid in the form of food provision, shelter, and direct monetary handouts to both Greek and migrant individuals and families. She argues that this is part of a unique ethos of care that devout Orthodox women and priests practice as part of a pious selfhood distinct from the notion of a volunteering citizen seen in secular humanitarianism. Hannah looks forward to finishing her dissertation with the support of Lake Institute and continuing her career as an educator.