Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Rochester
In a May 2026 roundup, the University reported twelve Fulbright U.S. Student grants for Rochester students and alumni, nine of them members of the Class of 2026, and three juniors named Goldwater Scholars in the scholarship's 40th anniversary year. Eleven NSF Graduate Research Fellowships went to six current students and five alumni, in fields from chemistry to computer science.
Research Funding for Undergraduates
The Schwartz Discover Grant is a living-expense fellowship of up to $6,000 for unpaid summer research under a Rochester-affiliated mentor. Under the 2026 terms, recipients logged at least 300 research hours, attended six of eight professional development workshops and presented at a fall symposium. Students in Arts & Sciences, the Hajim School and the Eastman School of Music are eligible; about 60 were expected to receive funding in 2026.
A Research and Innovation Grant is awarded only at enrollment, with no application. It can pay for conferences, summer program fees, research equipment or a stipend for an unpaid research position, with a faculty member's approval. Barth-Crapsey Undergraduate Research Awards of up to $1,000 back independent work in the humanities and social sciences, including projects on the history and culture of Rochester and Monroe County. For conference trips, the Research Presentation Award pays up to $1,300 in 2026-27, one award per student per year, and the office expects the student, mentor or department to share the cost.
Presenting and Publishing
Celebrating Research Week comes every April. Undergraduates show posters at the Poster Expo, which closes with an awards ceremony, give one-slide, three-minute Lightning Talks, or speak at a day-long Symposium organized in sessions by division. Judges weigh the quality of the research, the student's command of the subject and the topic's interest to a broad audience. Research done at another institution qualifies, with a letter from the outside mentor.
The Journal of Undergraduate Research publishes research done, written and published by Rochester undergraduates. Its staff includes a managing editor, and it has put out fall and spring issues.
Prizes and National Fellowships
The Undergraduate Writing Colloquium Awards take nonfiction academic and argumentative work of up to 20 pages, written for a course, independent research, a Rochester-affiliated study abroad program or a fellowship. Five categories each name a winner and one or two honorable mentions, all with cash prizes. WRTG course papers form a separate category, and so do multimodal projects. First-place writers present at the Colloquium Awards Dinner. A paper that used AI needs a statement explaining how.
The research office's funding list also gathers departmental prizes and grants. It includes the $500 Frederick Douglass Prize for the best undergraduate research paper in Black Studies and English Undergraduate Research Awards of $500 to $1,000 for majors and minors whose projects require travel. Students aiming at the Fulbright, Churchill or Critical Language scholarships start at the Student Fellowships Office in Dewey Hall, which books advising appointments once a student sends a prospective applicant form and a résumé.
Graduate Fellowships
The Sproull Fellowship is the University's most prestigious award for incoming doctoral students. Programs nominate applicants, a faculty committee evaluates them, and the Dean of Graduate Studies selects about ten to twelve a year. The Provost's Fellowship, first awarded in 1990, is aimed at broadening diversity among PhD students and is open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Later in the degree, the Raymond N. Ball Dissertation Fellowship funds a year of dissertation work in the humanities, economics or business administration, and the Elon Huntington Hooker Fellowship does the same for chemistry; both require a school or department nomination. The Messersmith and Joan Wright Goodman fellowships are one-year awards for science students who have passed their qualifying exams and are in full-time dissertation research.
Writing Help and the Dissertation
The Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program runs the Writing and Speaking Center for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, with drop-in hours, booked appointments and Write-On, an online tutoring option. Graduate students in Arts & Sciences and the Hajim School can join writing retreats of three to five days, offered in summer and during the academic year, to work on dissertations, MA theses, proposals or articles in a quiet room, with goals shared at the start and end of each session.
The June 2026 Manual for PhD Students sets the format: 8.5 by 11-inch pages, margins of at least 1.25 inches, double spacing in the front matter and body. It warns that a dissertation that is insufficiently edited or carelessly formatted can be turned back. After the defense, the PhD completion process calls for uploading the final dissertation to ProQuest and filing a UR Research authorization form, and the University Libraries store and publish the dissertation under the student's embargo terms.
Our editors check Rochester dissertations against the PhD manual's format rules and read Colloquium entries and course papers for grammar and consistency. See our University of Rochester dissertation and thesis editing and University of Rochester essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with the University of Rochester, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Rochester writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.