FoL Guidelines – The William Orr Dingwall Foundation

Application Guide

The fellowships focus on the branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between language and the structure or functions of the nervous system. Applications to support dissertation research that do not directly investigate that relationship will not be considered.

1. The nominee will be selected by a process to be decided upon by their program or department.

2. The nomination should be made in a letter from the Department/Program Head or Graduate Director that briefly (1) describes the selection process, (2) summarizes the considerations that led to the selection of this particular doctoral candidate as the program’s nominee, and (3) describes the nominee’s additional funds, if any, including amounts, sources, purposes (such as travel expenses, research costs, living expenses, etc), and any requirements for duties to be performed.

3. In support of the nomination, the nominee should submit

a summary of their dissertation proposal OF NOT LESS THAN 500 AND NOT MORE THAN 1000 WORDS and whatever preliminary data are available,
an official transcript of their grades in graduate school, and
their curriculum vitae and bibliography of published papers and presentations at professional meetings.

If definite arrangements have been made for a post-doctoral fellowship, the name of the institution, its location, and the name of the postdoctoral mentor should be noted in the CV.

4. In addition to the 1000 word description of the research, the application may contain a maximum of three additional pages of supplementary materials such as tables, photos, figures, etc. Supplementary material in excess of three pages will not be considered by the reviewers.

5. Three letters of recommendation are required:

one from the dissertation supervisor
two additional letters from faculty or other professionals who have been actively involved in the nominee’s research activities or who are otherwise knowledgeable about the nominee’s abilities and potential.

All letters of recommendation must be submitted online.

6. The deadline for submission of a nomination for the 2024-2025 academic year is May 1, 2024.

7. Applicants will be notified of the Foundation’s decision on August 15, 2024.

8. If the nominee has not completed all requirements for the doctorate apart from the actual dissertation by the end of the Foundation’s current funding cycle (June 30, 2024), the fellowship will not be awarded. The student may, however, be re-nominated by their program for a future competition.

Paper transcripts may be sent to:

Fellowship Coordinator
The William Orr Dingwall Foundation
PO Box 57088
Washington, DC 20037

Questions should be addressed to the Fellowship Coordinator by e-mail at nl@ dingwallfoundation.org.