Design Fellowship
The Design Fellowship is an opportunity for a select cohort of continuing MIT graduate students to engage in MAD’s activities and propose a research-oriented or personal design project throughout one or two semesters, while receiving full standard tuition support, a monthly stipend, and health insurance.
The MIT Morningside Academy for Design welcomes current Master’s or PhD candidates from any MIT department or school, as we strive to generate an interdisciplinary environment of knowledge interchange.
Submit your 2025 Design Fellowship application here, by noon (ET) Tuesday, January 14, 2025.
Video of MIT MAD 2023 Design Fellows
Who can apply?
Current Master’s or PhD candidates from any MIT department or school, whose research or work engages with design. Incoming MIT students are not eligible to apply.
Design is the use of creativity in the formulation of an object or system that directly considers human and social impacts. We encourage applicants to reflect on the use of design in their work or research, implications for the process of designing, as well as its potential for social and/or environmental impacts. Answering the question “Who will benefit from my work, and how?” should be a central aspect of Design Fellow applications.
Benefits & requirements
In addition to the financial award of stipend and standard tuition, Fellows are highly encouraged to engage with invited designers, researchers, MIT faculty members, and MAD’s program of public activities. Every week, Fellows join a mandatory for-credit lunch seminar aimed at enriching and expanding their work, and facilitating the sharing of ideas, while building community around design across MIT.
As the community of Design Fellows grows, a network of people and projects is expected to nurture additional initiatives. The Fellows' work will remain available in MAD’s archive as a resource to others as they move on to become the next generation of design leaders.
Application
Submit your 2025 Design Fellowship application here.
To be eligible, applicants must be in residence at MIT during the academic year and currently enrolled. Applicants must be nominated through a letter of support provided by an MIT faculty member with PI status*, with each faculty member limited to only one nomination. If we receive more than one nomination from a faculty member, we will ask that they select only one student for Fellowship consideration. Thus, it is important that the applicants and faculty members discuss the nomination. The expectation is that the nominator will be the applicant’s research or academic advisor.
*Senior Lecturers, Principal Lecturers, and Lecturers may also act as nominators.
Please carefully read the information below before applying.
BENEFITS
Two semesters of full regular tuition (Fall and Spring), as well as 9 months of stipend support. Fellows will also receive health insurance, beginning September 1.
We also welcome applications for one semester of support, which includes regular tuition for Fall or Spring semester, stipend support for 4.5 months, and health insurance for the semester.
The nominating faculty member will receive a scholarly allowance to support the Design Fellow’s need for materials, fieldwork, conference travel, or other allied support.
In extraordinary cases, a Design Fellow could be renewed for a second year.
DEADLINE
The 2025-26 academic year deadline for application is Tuesday, January 14, 2025, 12pm ET. The student candidate’s application and nomination letter from an MIT faculty member must be received by the deadline.
SUBMISSION
There are two different links: one for students and one for their nominating faculty. Please make sure to use the correct links.
There are two parts to a complete application:
- Part 1 should be submitted by the student candidate through this link.
- Part 2 must be submitted by the nominating MIT faculty member through this link.
PART 1
STUDENT CANDIDATE
- Once you have all the required documents for your application ready, complete the MAD 2025 Design Fellowship application form (supported by MAD's MITdesignX Accelerator App platform). The portal allows you to start and save an application, which can be completed at a later date.
- Attach a one-page PDF Curriculum Vitae, showing your current degree program.
- Attach a two-page (maximum 10 MB) PDF statement of interest addressing the questions below:
A — What is your area of study at MIT (research questions, methods, impact on users or society, or on design research)? If relevant, you can include previous design experiences or expertise, financial need, and areas of professional interest. One page in length.
B — How does your graduate program include design? What are you designing, for whom, and why? What are your long-term aspirations as a designer or design-focused researcher? One page in length.
The statement must be written with a multidisciplinary audience in mind, and non-specialists should be able to clearly understand the work and its design aspects. You may include images as part of your two-page statement, or a link to a portfolio with images. Please do not include attachments.
PART 2
FACULTY MEMBER NOMINATION
Submit a signed letter of nomination detailing the student’s qualifications and capabilities, and indicating why you believe the student should be awarded a Design Fellowship. This can include the potential financial impact of the Fellowship on the student, as well as the financial need for the faculty member’s research group. The letter should be two pages or less and submitted via this form. Each MIT faculty member may nominate only one student, who is that faculty member’s academic or research advisee.
SELECTION PROCESS
Morningside Academy for Design Fellows are selected by a faculty committee representing all five MIT Schools and the Schwarzman College of Computing. Award decisions will be announced in mid March 2025.
Criteria for selection include:
- Creativity and breadth of experience,
- clarity of project goals,
- overall academic quality,
- diversity of perspectives on design,
- potential impact of the fellowship on the student, including financial aspects.
CONTACT
If you have questions that are not answered here, please contact [email protected].
Design Fellows Community
Interested in meeting Design Fellows from previous years? Head this way and / or watch the video below.
Meet the inaugural cohort of Design Fellows
Information session
An information session was be held on Zoom on Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 5pm ET. The replay is available below.
Dec 11, 2024, Design Fellowship Info session replay
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated Nov 1, 2024
1. I already have another full fellowship (NSF, departmental fellowship, or other fellowship) for next year. Can I still apply?
Yes, you may still apply, though we recommend that you speak with your advisor or department graduate officer as to whether your current funding allows flexibility to be used in other years.
2. I have partial funding (RA/TA/fellowship) for next academic year. Can I still apply?
Yes, you can apply for one semester of support; please make a note in your application of the funding coverage that you already have (or are likely to have). For example, if you know that you will have a 50 percent Teaching Assistantship in the fall, please state that in your application. It will help us make the funding go farther. Also, MIT does not allow graduate students to earn a stipend above standard limits.
3. I’m an incoming MIT graduate student and do not have an advisor for next year. Can I still apply?
No. The fellowship application and timeline with a January deadline is intended for current, continuing graduate students already at MIT.
4. I have been working closely with a Senior Lecturer. Can I ask the person to nominate me? Are they considered a faculty member?
Yes. Senior Lecturers, Principal Lecturers, and Lecturers may also act as nominators. The expectation is that the nominator will be the applicant’s research or academic advisor.
5. The faculty member I am working with (or plan to work with) is already nominating another student. Can I ask another MIT faculty member to nominate me?
If this other MIT faculty member will be your thesis advisor or will be someone you will work closely with, then they can nominate you. However, no faculty advisor can nominate more than one Design Fellow applicant.
6. My research area has a number of design components but is not in a traditionally design-related field. Can I still apply?
It’s very difficult to assess the relevance of design to a topic without seeing a full application. The fellowships are not limited to fields or departments that are seen as design-centric. However, we expect that successful candidates will have prior design experience as well as active research in design. If you do not have examples of previous projects or products that you have helped to design, then you will likely not be a strong candidate for the Design Fellowship.
7. My research area is in X, Y or Z, and I’m not sure it’s relevant to the Design Fellowship solicitation. Should I apply?
It’s very difficult to assess the relevance of design to a topic without seeing a full application. We leave it up to you and your advisor to decide. The fellowships will typically support designers and researchers with some track record in design, rather than researchers who do not have a prior track record as designers.
8. Is there a specific format for the curriculum vitae and other documents in the application?
The documents should be PDF of 10 MB or less files: maximum one page for the curriculum vitae, and two pages for the statement of interest. Beyond that, the format of the documents is up to you. We only ask that you stick to the stated page limits and make sure your document uses a font that is readable. You may include images as part of your two-page statement or you may include a link to a Dropbox with images. Please do not include attachments to the statement.
9. I’m planning to work with another student on a joint graduate thesis and we will share a single faculty advisor. Can we apply?
Yes, you can apply, but you would share the funding between the two of you with a single advisor. Please submit a single application for the two-student team.
10. I’m ineligible or do not want to apply for the Design Fellowship, but I’d still like to be involved with the Morningside Academy for Design. Can I participate in the six-unit seminar even if I’m not a Design Fellow? Or are there other ways to be involved?
Only the Design Fellows will be allowed to participate in the six-unit seminar. However, there are other ways to engage with MIT MAD. We offer a variety of public programming throughout the year, and we would love for you to attend and to bring others. Some of the sessions will be open to all, while some sessions will be closed to the public. We are also launching a new student advisory board.
11. I am not going to be in residence at MIT the entire year. Can I still receive the Fellowship?
We will prioritize students who will be in residence at MIT for the full academic year. If you are graduating mid-year, you may apply for one semester of support.
12. When will the seminar be scheduled?
Once the set of Fellows has been selected, we will try to find a mutually agreeable time for the weekly seminar.
13. Will there be an information session? What if I'm not available?
Yes, there will be an information session on Zoom, on December 11, 2024 at 5pm ET. You can find the replay 2023’s information session in the dedicated section above (Information session).