The SPA / Robert Lemelson Foundation Fellowship Program

Application Deadline: January 15, 2026

  • About the fellowship
  • About dr. lemelson

The SPA/Robert Lemelson Foundation Fellowships are designed to provide graduate students working in the field of psychological anthropology with funding to pursue exploratory research for planning their doctoral dissertation research and /or methods training to prepare for their doctoral dissertation research. Research projects supported by the funding should have the potential of advancing the field of psychological anthropology. 

Normally, fellows receive their awards after their first or second year of graduate training as they begin to develop their dissertation research projects. Proposed exploratory projects are evaluated for viability and the potential of resulting in future dissertation research that will advance the field of psychological anthropology. Preference is given to applicants conducting exploratory research abroad. There will be a limited number of SPA/RLF awards available for the 2026 round. Each fellow is expected to receive between $3,000 and $6,000 depending upon need.

Dr. Robert Lemelson

Dr. Robert Lemelson, Ph.D., is an anthropologist who received his M.A. from the University of Chicago, and his doctorate from the UCLA Department of Anthropology. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. He is also the president and founder of The Foundation for Psychocultural Research, a non-profit research foundation supporting research and training in the neurosciences and social sciences, and the director of Elemental Productions, a ethnographic documentary film production company. In addition, he is a director of the Lemelson Foundation, a family foundation supporting invention and innovation for basic human needs and sustainable development in the United States and the developing world.

As a practitioner and strong advocate of psychological anthropology, Dr. Lemelson personally began the SPA/Lemelson student fellowship and conference funds programs in 2007 to encourage graduate student fieldwork in psychological anthropology and to support faculty conference gatherings meant to stimulate innovative and creative thinking in psychological anthropology. Through these programs, numerous graduate students have been enabled to establish field sites for themselves and several collections of scholars have been encouraged to meet, exchange ideas, and push the boundaries and frontiers of both theory and practice in psychological anthropology.

Contact: Devin Flaherty, SPA Secretary, devin.flaherty@utsa.edu

Application Form:

2026-Application-FormDownload

Application Instructions:

ELIGIBILITY

  • Fellowships are open to all graduate students without regard to citizenship or place of residence. 
  • Applicants must be enrolled in a graduate program at the time of application and during the period of the fellowship. Applicants’ proposed research must be in the field of psychological anthropology, broadly defined, but they do not need to be students in Departments of Anthropology. 
  • Applicants cannot have completed more than four years of graduate education, including all institutions that they have attended.
  • Applicants must be current members of the Society of Psychological Anthropology (SPA), a section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) as of Monday, January 15, 2026.  Details on joining the AAA and the SPA can be found at https://spa.americananthro.org/join-spa/. (Note: If the applicant is not a current member, we suggest submitting the membership application well in advance to be sure that the membership is current by the deadline.) 
  • The funding cannot be used to collect data for the fellow’s master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. This funding is explicitly for exploratory research to plan doctoral dissertation research, not for collection of data for broader projects. 
  • Funding is typically for summer research and will fund research conducted prior to the start of the applicant’s Fall 2026 academic term.  
  • Funding will be administered through fellows’ academic institutions.
  • Fellows are required to disclose additional funding that they have received, applied for, or plan to apply for to support their proposed research project (see required RLF Fellowship application form). In cases where awardees secure funding additional to the Robert Lemelson Foundation fellowship, they are strictly prohibited from using RLF fellowship funds to cover expenses that are already covered by other funding mechanisms. Fellows may use Robert Lemelson Foundation fellowship funds only for expenses that are not covered by those additional funding mechanisms. 
  • All fellows are required to attend the 2026 American Anthropological Association annual meeting (St. Louis, MO; Nov 18-22, 2026)

PERMISSIBLE USES OF ROBERT LEMELSON FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP FUNDING

Funding is typically for summer research and will fund research conducted prior to the start of the applicant’s Fall 2026 academic term. Financial support can be requested to support all travel expenses, including airfare, ground transportation, and visa application fees; living expenses and housing; fieldwork expenses such as gifts for participants, translator and field assistant fees; and all other reasonable and justified expenses. Funds may not be used to pay for graduate school tuition or durable equipment, such as computers, cameras, or digital voice recorders. Budgets must include financial support up to a maximum of $800 to attend 2026 AAA Meeting. 

Funding cannot be used to support language training in more commonly taught languages, such as Spanish, French and Arabic. Some funding can be used to support language instruction for languages where formal instruction is limited, but the focus of the project should be on pursuing exploratory research rather than strictly language instruction. Funding can be used for methods training, but the methods in question must be tied directly to the exploratory research project and it will be this project that is the focus of the selection committee’s review. Proposals for general methods or statistical training, for example, are unlikely to be funded. We expect to fund proposals between $3,000 and $6,000. You may request a larger amount than the stated limit, but it is very unlikely that an award over $6,000 will be made.

APPLICATION COMPONENTS

This application will include 5 total components, 4 to be submitted by the applicant, and 1 by their recommender. The 4 components submitted by the applicant should all be combined within a single PDF file with your last name followed by RLF 2026, i.e. “Smith_RLF 2026.” 

  • Application form: Download the fellowship application form from the SPA/Robert Lemelson Foundation Fellowship tab on the SPA website, complete the form using Adobe Acrobat or Reader. 
  • Project statement: In 750 – 1,000 words (excluding references), please describe the specific research activities or training that you will carry out with support from the SPA/Robert Lemelson Foundation Fellowship. Explain your research aims and activities, including any preliminary data you will collect and analyses you are considering. Please specify the ways in which this preliminary research and/or methods training has the potential to make your dissertation research more successful. Please indicate whether you have ever spent time in the field site in question. If so, please indicate the length of time and experience you have there, and how this period of research will be different from previous visits. Your proposal should specifically address how your research program has the potential to advance the field of psychological anthropology. The statement should be single-spaced and use a 12-point font and one-inch margins on all sides. Any references included should be narrowly focused and should not exceed 300 words. 
    • (2b) Research contingency plans: In addition to the plans laid out above, the SPA/RLF fellowship review committee would like to know if you have developed a plan to address your research questions should the situation change dramatically. If you are unable to travel or meet in person with research participants and collaborators, briefly outline how you will address your research questions? 
  • Brief curriculum vitae: In one single-spaced page, provide details on your education with dates of enrollment; any research funding, fellowships, and awards you may have received, including amounts and dates, and any academic publications and presentations you may have completed. Include details on prior employment, volunteer work, and other experience only if it is directly relevant to the proposed research. Other information, such as teaching experience, should not be included. 
  • Budget and budget justification: In one single-spaced page, provide a detailed and specific budget with justification for the items and amounts included. Justification should include mention of how costs were estimated. Your budget must include support of up to $800 for attendance at either the 2026 SPA Biennial meeting, and this amount can be listed as a single item in your budget.

In addition, your application must also include a letter of recommendation sent directly from your recommender:

  • Letter of recommendation: Applicants must obtain a letter written in support of their application from a faculty member familiar with their work and research aspirations. Normally, this will be the chair of the student’s graduate research advisory committee. Please provide the attached information sheet (see below) to the individual who is writing the letter. It is the applicant’s responsibility to be sure that the letter is received by the deadline. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. Only one letter of recommendation will be accepted. 

As you prepare your application materials, we encourage you to become familiar with your institution’s Institutional Review Board requirements for your research and to begin preparing your IRB protocol. Planning ahead in this way will help to ensure that, if your proposed research is funded, you will not experience delays with beginning your fieldwork.

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION DETAILS

Deadline for application submission: January 15, 2026. 

Your application should consist of a single combined PDF file that contains all four components from the applicant, as described above. Please label the PDF with your last name followed by RLF 2026, i.e. “Smith_RLF 2026.” 

To submit your application, please send the file as an attachment to the SPA Secretary, Devin Flaherty (devin.flaherty@utsa.edu) by the deadline. Applications received after this time and date will not be reviewed. 

We expect to contact awardees in March 2026. Please contact SPA Secretary, Devin Flaherty (devin.flaherty@utsa.edu) with questions or if there are any changes to your application after you submit, such as receipt of other funding.

2026 RLF Fellowship Application InstructionsDownload

Past SPA/RLF Fellowship Award Recipients

Nicole Marin (SOAS)

“Coming of Age in Therapeutic Communities for Drug Addiction in Italy: An Ethnographic Analysis of Therapeutic Trajectories and Subjectivities.”

Silver McKie (Washington University of Washington – St. Louis)

“Manifold Selves: Clinical Tension in Conceptualizing Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder”

Inika Murkumbi (Stanford)

 “‘Notable Difference’ and Non-diagnostic Care in Delhi Government Schooling”

Courtney Nelson (UCLA)

 “Blurring the Boundaries between Magic/Madness: The Phenomenology of Possession/Psychosis in Vietnam”

Nellychris Chiamaka Omeonu (University of Connecticut)

 “Negotiating Emotional Labor in Sickle Cell Disease Care and Management in the Northeastern United States”

Brian Whetsell (University of Chicago)

“First Time as First-Gen: Emerging Identity, Selfhood, and Well-Being at First-Generation College Student Summer Programs”

Faith Cole (UCLA)

“Negotiating Care : An Ethnography of Mental Health Governance and Community-based Services in Rio Negro, Argentina”

Daisy Couture (Princeton University)

“Madness in the Age of the Neural: Hysteria and the Psychic Life of Neuroscience in the UK”

Tomás De Oliveira (Washington University)

“Virtual Embodiments: Psychological Anthropology and the Circulation of Mental Health Technologies Across Global Contexts”

Cynthia Lazzaroni (McGill University)

“La Bobera: Under the Spell of Forgetting and the Politics of Memory in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s in Antioquia, Colombia”

Annalise Mangone (Washington University)

“How to Decide: Exploring Advanced Care Planning and Spirituality in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”

Aaron Mascarenhas (Stanford University)

“Personality and its Disorders: A Break from the Past”

Ofir Tenenbaum (Boston University)

“Family narratives of Israeli immigrants in Berlin under changing political climate”

Zoe Berman

University of Chicago

On the “Post-Genocide Generation”: Intergenerational memories and Psychosomatic Distress in Contemporary Rwanda

Mary Cook

University of Chicago

Denying Refuge: Psychocultural Perspectives on Anti-immigration Activism in Belfast

Raffaella Seymour

University of Chicago

Being Gay and Pentecostal: Conflicted Moral Selfhood in Zimbabwe

Mengqing Shang

Boston University

Where the East Meets the West: The interaction of Buddhism and Western Psychotherapeutics in China’s Psycho-Boom

Reem Mehdoui

UCLA

Tunisian Youth, Revolution, and Articulation of Morality in Times of Crisis

Alexia Arani

UCSD

Queering Care: Caring Positivities: Caring Subjectivities Among Queer and Trans People of Color in a Post-Obama United States

Sara Rendell

University of Pennsylvania

Finding Footing on Shifting Terrain: Ethnography of Migrant Cartographies

Emily Wilson

University of Chicago

Intimacy for Hire: Sensorial Care in the American Gig Economy

Lauren Nippoldt

UCSD

Navigating Moral Experiences with Care: Discussing Motivation and Wellbeing among Care Workers in Chandigarh, India

Paula Martin

University of Chicago

Our Bodies Are Not Our Selves: Situating the Discourse of Gender Identity in the US

Alexis Howard

The University of Chicago

Lauren Cubellis

Washington University at St. Louis

Yael Assor

UCLA

Ellen Kozelka

UCSD

Anisha Chadha

New York University

Seamus Power

The University of Chicago

Beth Semel

MIT

Danielle Carr

University of Minnesota

Devin Flaherty

UCLA

Ting Hai Lau

Cornell University

Emily Lucitt

UCLA

Jessica McCauley

Washington University Pullman

Noha Roushdy

Boston University

Tyler Zoanni

NYU

David A. Ansari

The University of Chicago

Jessica Cooper

Princeton University

Laura Horton

The University of Chicago

Afshan Kamrudin

SMU

Kelsey Robbins

The University of Chicago

William Hartmann

University of Michigan

Werner B. Hertzog

Vanderbilt University

Robert M. Loomis

The University of Chicago

Aidan Seale Feldman

UCLA

Jessica Ham

University of Georgia

Jenn Lindsay

Boston University

Ashley Morris

University of Hawaii

Arielle Wright

Washington University in St. Louis

Michael Chladek

The University of Chicago

Lindsey Conklin

The University of Chicago

Nofit Itzhak

UCSD

Erin Moore

The University of Chicago

Kristi Ninneman

Case Western University

Caissa Revilla-Minaya

Vanderbilt University

Jenny Walkton-Wetszel

UCLA

Ming Xue

UCLA

Elise Berman

The University of Chicago

Andrea Chiovenda

Boston University

Meghan Halley

Case Western University

Christian Lahejj

London School of Economics

Sara Lewis

Columbia University

Zhiying Ma

The University of Chicago

Hillary Melchiors

Case Western University

Victoria Ramenzoni

University of Georgia

Amy Rezac

Case Western University

Sarah Rubin

Case Western University

Seinenu Thein

UCLA

Katrin Tovote

University of Hawaii

Laura Vares

Brown University

Leslie Jo Weaver

Emory University