Prize Graduate Fellowships
Applicants will be considered for the following special fellowships during our admissions process:
The Bachmann Graduate Fellowship: This fellowship is awarded to students working on instrumentation. The Fellowship can be awarded for up to one full year of support and fees. UC Santa Cruz is the headquarters for the University of California Observatories and a center for the design and fabrication for instruments and adaptive optics systems for the Lick Observatory and Keck Observatory telescopes. There is also an active program of forefront research in the areas of adaptive optic technologies, astronomical coatings and thin films and advanced optical fabrication.
James Edward Keeler Fund for Excellence in Astronomy and Astrophysics Established in 2016, this fellowship provides support to current graduate students and to attract superior applicants to the graduate program, such as support for individual graduate student research programs and travel funds. The Keeler fund aims to help students from all backgrounds, particularly first in family to enter higher education.
Osterbrock Fellowships for future leaders in astronomy and astrophysics: Eminent American astronomer Donald E. Osterbrock pioneered the study of gaseous nebulae, helped to discover that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, originated the classification scheme for active galactic nuclei, and was one of Lick Observatory’s most influential directors. His wife, Irene, worked tirelessly to help establish the UCSC Library’s Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory as a world-renowned repository of U.S. astronomical history.
To honor them and to build on our record of fostering excellence, the Donald E. and Irene Osterbrock Leadership Fellowships for future leaders in astronomy and astrophysics is awarded annually on the basis of merit to highly qualified graduate students of the UCSC Astronomy Ph.D. program. We will seek out students with extraordinary leadership potential in addition to excellent classroom performance, and previous research accomplishments. Applicants will submit a letter stating how award of an Osterbrock Fellowship would enhance their future career plans. As the final step, finalists and their advisers will separately be interviewed in person by the selection committee. In addition to the first-year applicants, meritorious students who have displayed the requisite qualities after joining the Ph.D. program will also be considered.
HOW TO APPLY: Submit all applications to the Graduate Division of UCSC. Indicate your interest in one of the above fellowships in your application.
