Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Texas at Dallas
Four UT Dallas doctoral students won Visionary New Scientist Awards at the Ramona Jones Friends of BrainHealth Luncheon, each worth $20,000 in grant funding to design and lead a research project. The university's December 2025 accolades report lists two winners in cognition and neuroscience; the other two study computer engineering and psychology.
Undergraduate Research and The Exley
The Office of Undergraduate Education runs the Undergraduate Research Scholar Awards, a one-time competitive award for degree-seeking undergraduates working on an ongoing project. A student can join a faculty member's research or lead a project under a faculty mentor, who need not be at UT Dallas. Recipients receive $500 after presenting a poster at the Undergraduate Research Week contest, and the faculty sponsor receives $300 for supplies, project travel or poster printing. Standout posters go to a final round, where outside judges pick three winners for extra prize money.
The same office publishes The Exley, the UT Dallas undergraduate research journal. It takes research and creative work from science and engineering, social science, arts and technology, and the visual and performing arts, and it lists open positions on its staff.
Graduate Awards and Fellowships
The Office of Graduate Education lists its awards and grants on one page. In the 2026 round, the Dean of Graduate Education Dissertation Research Award gave doctoral students in the dissertation year up to $5,000 for equipment, supplies, participant payments, research travel and limited research assistant support. It can't pay the student's salary, and each student may hold only one dissertation award at UT Dallas. Two awards take no application, because faculty committees choose the winners. Each Ph.D.-granting school names one Best Dissertation Award winner a year, and the David Daniel Thesis Award, endowed in 2006 by the former UT Dallas president, goes to two Ph.D. students a year, one in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and one in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Both come with a monetary award and a plaque.
Applicants to the research-intensive doctoral programs are considered automatically for the Eugene McDermott Graduate Fellows Program, established in spring 2014. Doctoral students who have passed the qualifying exam can enter the 3-Minute Thesis and explain their research to a non-specialist audience in three minutes or less.
Writing Centers
Undergraduates use the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, MC 1.310. Peer Leaders there work on grammar, citations, analysis, rhetorical analyses and research reports, in person or through virtual sessions that return written feedback on a document. The center also hosts a Creative Writing Group, and its workshops range from personal statements to citing sources.
Any current graduate student can book Graduate Writing Services, where the Graduate Reader team meets one-on-one about dissertations, theses, research papers, class assignments and conference presentations. As the FAQ explains, the student sets the agenda and chooses to meet in person or through MS Teams.
Formatting and Submitting a Thesis
The Dissertation and Thesis Formatting Guide covers both the traditional document and the manuscript version built from journal articles. Students pick one style manual with the supervising professor and committee, from ACS and APA 7th to Turabian 9th, and use it throughout. Every submission needs a linked table of contents, linked lists of figures and tables, alt text for all graphics and tagged headings. Documents built on an outdated template are rejected. The Dissertation and Thesis page carries the current Word and LaTeX templates and offers formatting consultations by appointment.
Under the Submission Guide, students upload a PDF through ProQuest ETD Administrator along with a Turnitin similarity receipt, and the office checks the format before final approval. No changes are allowed after approval. The Eugene McDermott Library then makes the work public through the UT Dallas Institutional Repository, and a copy goes to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Our editors give manuscripts a final edit for grammar, consistency and format before they go to the Office of Graduate Education for review. See our UT Dallas dissertation and thesis editing and UT Dallas 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 Texas at Dallas, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your UT Dallas writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.