Student
Marlie Ellen Lukach
Graduate Student
Degree Pursued: PhD
Anticipated Degree Year: 2025
Discipline: Plant Breeding and Genetics
Primary Language: Thai
Research Countries: Thailand
Research Interests: Making cucurbits (squash, gourds, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins) from Southeast Asia and Africa more accessible in the US while preserving biodiversity through her initiative 'Cucurbits of the World Network'
Additional Information
Tamar Law
Graduate Student
Degree Pursued: PhD
Anticipated Degree Year: 2027
Committee Chair/Advisor: Jenny Goldstein
Discipline: Development Studies
Primary Language: Indonesian/Malay
Research Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei
Additional Information
Amr Leheta
Graduate Student, Near Eastern Studies
Amr Leheta is a PhD student in Cornell University's Department of Near Eastern Studies.
He was a research associate for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, from 2014 to 2018. There, he worked on numerous research projects related to U.S.-Middle East foreign policy, with a particular focus on Egypt and Turkey, as well as Middle Eastern history, politics, and society.
Additional Information
Ecem Sarıçayır
Graduate Student, Architecture
Ecem Sarıçayır is pursuing a PhD in history of architecture and urban development at Cornell University. Her dissertation analyzes the history of art, architecture, and urbanism in the South Caucasus with a particular focus on the displacements and resettlements of the peoples in the region, as well as the alternative solidarities existing among them.
Additional Information
Parijat Jha
Graduate Student
Degree: PHD, Anthropology
Language: Urdu
Research Interests: Agriculture, apple cultivation and climate change in the Western Himalayas, and the social, environmental, and political-economic conditions surrounding labor migration in South Asia
Additional Information
Dietrich Bouma
Graduate Student
Additional Information
Leonardo Santamaría-Montero
LACS Graduate Fellow ’21-‘24
Leonardo Santamaría-Montero is a PhD student in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies. He is interested in the study of 19th century Central American visual and material culture, with a focus on indigenous aesthetics and their representations.
Additional Information
Evangelista Graduate Fellows Program
Details
Each year, the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies provides a select cohort of fellows with unique opportunities for professional networking and development in the field of peace and conflict studies.
Evangelista Fellows participate in the Institute’s weekly public seminars and enjoy additional opportunities such as meeting with distinguished scholars in small groups and hosting the visit of scholars of their choosing. The Institute provides financial and administrative resources for these collective activities as well as a small ($350) research stipend for each Fellow. Current and former fellows also receive priority when applying for additional funding opportunities, such as the Institute’s Graduate Fellowship.
Each cohort of Evangelista Fellows is interdisciplinary, with interests spanning various issues, such as nuclear arms control and disarmament, climate change and conflict, governance of emerging technologies, human rights, race, and gender. Fellows are appointed for one year and may be renewed for subsequent years.
Eligibility
Masters, doctoral, and law students, including students beginning in fall 2026.
Amount
$350 research stipend.
Additional Information
Global PhD Research Awards
Details
Conduct your international field research with a $10,000 award to support fieldwork expenses.
The Einaudi Center’s Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Awards fund international fieldwork to help Cornell students complete their dissertations. Through a generous gift from Amit Bhatia, this funding opportunity annually supports at least six PhD students who have passed the A exam. Recipients hold the title of Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Scholars. Meet the scholars.
All disciplines and research topics are welcome. Please indicate in your application if your project aligns with one of the Einaudi Center's global research priorities or one of our regional and thematic programs.
Eligibility
Cornell graduate students who have passed the A exam and been admitted to candidacy are eligible to apply. International fieldwork must be a critical component of your dissertation research. You must commit to travel abroad to conduct fieldwork for 9–12 months.
Please note that this award is meant to be supplementary to your primary funding source. This award does not provide tuition credit and requires students to be in absentia. A report is required upon completion.
Amount
$10,000, to be used before the end of the sixth PhD year. The award can cover the following expenses:
- International travel (economy airfare, visa fees)
- Domestic travel within the fieldwork country
- Accommodation and living expenses
- Research expenses (permits, translation costs, internet, archive access, survey costs, lab fees, etc.)
We encourage you to apply for other Cornell and external funding to complement this award, but please note that you are not eligible to apply for Einaudi’s travel grants. If you have already received a travel grant and wish to apply for a Global PhD Research Award, you may return your travel grant if you receive this award.
Please note that you may only bill for a research expense once. If an expense is already covered by this award or a Graduate School research travel grant, you may not use other Cornell or external grants to pay the same expense.
International Travel Approval
All international travel must be registered with the Cornell International Travel Registry. In line with Cornell’s international travel policy, selected students who plan to travel to a country flagged by the US Department of State as a "Level 4: Do not travel," or by the CDC as Level 4 "Special Circumstances," must get their travel plans reviewed and approved via a petition process by the International Travel Advisory & Response Team (ITART). ITART petitions are triggered by rules built into the Travel Registry, so if selected students’ travel requires a petition, the Travel Registry will prompt them for additional information about, and a rationale for, their elevated risk travel plans.
Please be aware that regardless of your destination, approval may be withdrawn if there is a change in the risk level of your destination or if we find that you have violated any contingencies of approval given. In such instances, you will be required to refund the award.
To receive the award, selected students must follow the university’s guidelines to petition for permission to travel internationally, to be submitted no earlier than six weeks and at least two weeks before the scheduled travel. In addition, students must participate in a short, online international travel predeparture orientation course designed by the university’s International Health & Safety team in order to receive travel approval.
Deadline
Applications, recommendation letters, and transcripts are due Friday, March 7, 2025 (11:59 p.m. ET).
How to Apply
Please order your official electronic transcript through the Office of the Registrar (see below); do not send your transcript directly. In the application, you will be asked to provide the following:
- Official electronic transcript (send to programs@einaudi.cornell.edu)
- Abstract of your dissertation project (maximum 150 words)
- Introduction to your dissertation project (maximum 400 words)
- Statement explaining the contribution of your research to existing literature and its relevance to advancing the human condition, planetary sustainability, or other impacts (maximum 400 words)
- Statement about publications that have most significantly informed your research (maximum 100 words)
- Statement explaining your plans for international field research (maximum 600 words)
- International field research budget information
- NetID email address of your recommender (your graduate thesis advisor)
FAQ
More Questions?
Join us for an upcoming information session.
Please email our academic programming staff if you have additional questions about the program or your application.
Additional Information
Harry Dienes
Graduate Student
Degree Pursued: PhD
Anticipated Degree Year: 2026
Committee chair/advisor: Tom Pepinsky
Discipline: Government
Research Countries: Timor-Leste
Research Interests: Comparative and Historical Political Economy, State Institutions, Bureaucracy, and Development