Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Delaware

Five UD undergraduates were named 2026 Goldwater Scholars in March, the most in the university's history. Only one other institution in the country matched that count. Three were juniors and two were sophomores at the time, all in the Honors College, with research running from chemometrics and polymer science to plant biology, biogeochemistry and artificial intelligence.

Paid Research Terms for Undergraduates

The Undergraduate Research Program pays students to do research with a faculty mentor. Summer Scholars work full time for ten weeks on an original research or creative project, attend workshops on research methods and presentation, and close the summer with an oral report or poster at a celebratory symposium.

Winter Session is shorter but also funded. The Winter Fellows Award pays a stipend for five weeks of research by full-time students, who must name a faculty mentor when they apply and then present a poster or talk at the Winter Showcase in the spring. For students already presenting off campus, the program's Conference & Travel Award puts a limited pool of money toward the cost of attending and presenting at academic conferences.

The Senior Thesis

A UD senior thesis takes two semesters of senior year, in UNIV 401 and UNIV 402, under a faculty director with a second and third faculty reader. Students also present to peer groups along the way. A finished thesis, with the required GPA, earns a Degree with Distinction; Honors College students earn an Honors Degree with Distinction.

In fall 2026 the Writing Center runs a weekly group that meets in person for undergraduates writing a senior thesis.

Dissertation Prizes and Graduate Funding

The Graduate College lists its competitive awards on its funding opportunities page. Full-time doctoral students in their graduating year can be nominated for six Dissertation Prizes: the Dan Rich, Wilbur Owen Sypherd, George Herbert Ryden, Allan P. Colburn and Theodore Wolf prizes, plus one for interdisciplinary research. Doctoral programs nominate students for the Doctoral Fellowship for Excellence, a one-year award that recognizes scholarship, teaching, or leadership and service; a holder can be renominated for a second year. Self-nominations aren't accepted. For summer 2026 the Summer Doctoral Fellowship paid a $9,000 stipend to doctoral students with little or no summer funding.

Conference money comes from the Office of the Provost. A graduate student who has finished at least one year of study and is presenting or performing at a conference can apply for the Graduate Student Travel Award. The Graduate College pays up to $1,500 over a student's whole graduate career, and up to $3,000 when another university source or an outside grant matches it dollar for dollar. Humanities students whose research depends on library, archive and museum collections can apply for the Unidel Louise Roselle Collections-Based Research Travel Award for summer travel, with priority for dissertation and master's thesis research.

Writing Center and Thesis Review

The University Writing Center, at 016 Memorial Hall, offers in-person, real-time online and asynchronous e-tutoring appointments to undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Its graduate writing tutors are doctoral students from programs throughout UD, and they help graduate students with class assignments, writing for publication, and thesis or dissertation projects. This fall graduate writers also have a weekly writing group on Zoom.

The Graduate College's steps to graduation start with the UD Thesis and Dissertation Manual and the UD Thesis/Dissertation Styles. After the PDF goes in, the Graduate College reviews it and sends back any formatting corrections, then routes the final approval form for signatures. The manual states that the Graduate College does not provide personal copy-editing services and that the student is responsible for an error-free paper. Accepted documents are loaded into ProQuest, and a student can request sequestration of up to twelve months when restricted information is integral to the work.

UD's manual makes each student responsible for an error-free paper, and our editors can give a thesis or dissertation a final check for grammar, consistency and format before the Graduate College sees it. See our University of Delaware dissertation and thesis editing and University of Delaware essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• The Secret to Better Grades: Starting Your Writing Process Early
• Literature Synthesis: Moving Beyond the Summary toward Authority
• Escaping the Revision Pile: Strategies for First-Round Approval