Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Hawaii at Manoa

At the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting in New Orleans in October 2026, a fourth-year student at the John A. Burns School of Medicine received Best Poster in the medical education subcategory for a virtual reality atlas of orbital anatomy. She presented that project and five others, including work on thyroid eye disease and health disparities, at two national ophthalmology conferences that month.

Money for Undergraduate Projects

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program awards merit-based scholarship funds for mentored research and creative work. Project funding goes to students who write a full proposal with a methodology, timetable and itemized budget, alone or in groups of two to ten, with a faculty mentor who reviews the proposal. A second track, presentation funding, pays toward conference talks and posters, performances, exhibits and competitions.

Students with little or no research experience can start with Entering Research and Creative Work, which pairs each student with a mentor on a new or existing project and includes reading in the related literature. At the end of summer, undergraduates present mentored research and creative work at the SURE Symposium, a multidisciplinary conference of oral and poster sessions.

Two Journals That Print Student Work

Mānoa Horizons is the undergraduate journal of UH Mānoa. It takes research, creative work and performance from any field, as long as undergraduates are the main authors or investigators, and each annual issue appears in print and online. Its masthead lists a student editorial review board alongside an advisory board and an editorial review board.

For poems, stories and essays there is Hawaiʻi Review, which the English Department lists among its journals as the student-edited, twice-yearly literary journal of the campus. Its staff welcomes both manuscripts and volunteers.

Graduate Awards

Graduate Division manages a group of named fellowships, scholarships and awards that the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation coordinates. They are listed on its STAR fellowships and scholarships page. The Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii Graduate Fellowship Fund serves full-time doctoral students and can go toward finishing a dissertation. The Mirikitani Outstanding Dissertation Award recognizes exceptional doctoral work by students who have filed Form II.

Achievement Scholarships apply to tuition and fees for master's and doctoral students with a 3.5 cumulative GPA. Students apply through their graduate programs, and awards start at $500.

Writing Help and Thesis Submission

The Writing Center in the Student Success Center gives free consultations to anyone affiliated with the University of Hawaiʻi, graduate students included, in KUY 411 or online.

Graduate Division's style policy makes the student responsible for editing and preparing the final manuscript, and pages with spelling errors come back for reformatting. The title page must spell Mānoa and Hawaiʻi with their diacritical marks. Finished theses and dissertations are uploaded through ProQuest ETD and made public in ScholarSpace, the repository Hamilton Library maintains.

A manuscript going to Graduate Division, a journal editor or an instructor can get a last check for grammar, consistency and format from our editors. See our University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa dissertation and thesis editing and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• The Secret to Better Grades: Starting Your Writing Process Early
• The Results Chapter: Presenting Data with Forensic Clarity
• ProQuest Readiness: The Final Mechanical Audit