Scholarships and Research Support

Departmental Scholarships and Research Support

Through the generosity of alumni and other friends of the department, the Chemistry Department is able to offer scholarships, fellowships, awards, and summer research support. Any student who is a chemistry major or is conducting research with a chemistry faculty member is eligible to apply for the awards. An overall GPA of 2.5 is recommended, but not required, for award eligibility; awards are based on both merit and financial need. Please note that applicants working with affiliated faculty members must ALSO be chemistry majors. Non-chemistry majors working with an affiliate faculty member are not eligible for these awards.

Award applications are available in mid-December and are typically due mid-February for both the summer and academic year awards. The common application is available on the Wisconsin Scholarship Hub, WiSH (https://wisc.academicworks.com/). Students must first complete the General Application on their WiSH dashboard (https://wisc.academicworks.com/users/sign_in), before applying to specific opportunities offered through the Department of Chemistry (https://wisc.academicworks.com/opportunities/9195)

To apply for academic year scholarships and/or summer research support, students complete just one application called Chemistry Undergraduate Scholarships and Research Support in WiSH.

More information can be found both in WiSH and on the chemistry website (https://www.chem.wisc.edu/content/chemistry-scholarships).

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Scholarships and research support for the academic year

To apply for academic year scholarships and/or research support, students must complete an online application through the Wisconsin Scholarship Hub (WiSH). To apply for academic year scholarships and/or summer research support, students complete just one application called Chemistry Undergraduate Scholarships and Research Support in WiSH.

Research support for undergraduate chemistry research students

Recipients of the research support must commit to working at least 30 hours per week for eight weeks during the summer, or 240 hours over the entire summer. Students cannot receive both the UW-Madison Hilldale/Holstrom Research Fellowship and chemistry research support for the same summer. Recent graduates are ineligible for summer research support. 

To apply for academic year scholarships and/or research support, students must complete an online application through the Wisconsin Scholarship Hub (WiSH). To apply for academic year scholarships and/or summer research support, students complete just one application called Chemistry Undergraduate Scholarships and Research Support in WiSH.

Dept. of Chemistry Undergraduate Research Travel Award

This travel award provides funding for undergraduates to attend a professional chemistry conference.  Awards range in size from $200 to $400 depending on the number of applicants and funds available. More details about eligibility and the application process are emailed to students currently conducting research in October and again in March for the two award cycles (one in the Fall and one in the Spring).

UW-Madison Scholarships and Awards

The following scholarships are campus-wide. Each scholarship requires a separate application based on the award’s individual requirements.

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Ruth Bleier Scholarship in the Natural Sciences

Ruth Bleier Scholarship in the Natural Sciences: Established to encourage women to pursue careers in the natural sciences or medicine. Awards are made to women students at UW-Madison who, is an undergraduate woman student enrolled in the Gender and Women’s Studies major or certificate program AND in a major or certificate program in science or health. The one-year award will provide a stipend of $1,000, which will be awarded at the end of the Spring semester to be used during the following academic year. Applications are due in March.

Hilldale/Holstrom Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowships

Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowships: The Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowships support undergraduate research done in collaboration with UW-Madison faculty or research/instructional academic staff. Applicants must have at least junior standing at time of application, must plan a collaborative research project with a UW-Madison faculty/staff member, and plan to graduate after May of the application year. Applications are due in February.

Holstrom Environmental Scholarship:  This award supports undergraduate research with an environmental focus done in collaboration with UW-Madison faculty or research/instructional academic staff. Applicants must be at least junior standing at time of application, must plan a collaborative research project with a UW-Madison faculty/staff member, and plan to graduate after May of the application year. Applications are due in February.

ACS-Hach Land Grant Undergraduate Scholarship

ACS-Hach Land Grant Undergraduate Scholarship: This generous $10,000 per year scholarship is available to a student majoring in chemistry (or biochemistry) who intends to teach high school chemistry after graduation. It is renewable each year, and it can even be used for to earn a Master of Science in Curriculum & Instruction at UW-Madison, which provides certification for teaching high school chemistry. The application for this scholarship will be available through WiSH and due mid-February. More information about this scholarship can be found here.

Sophomore Research Fellowships

Wisconsin Idea Fellowships

UW-Madison McNair Scholars Program

National Scholarships and Awards

Each external scholarship requires a separate application based on the award’s requirements. This list is not exhaustive. You may also wish to visit the UW-Madison Undergraduate Academic Awards Office for additional information.

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ACS Women Chemists Committee/Eli Lilly Travel Awards

ACS Women Chemists Committee/Eli Lilly Travel Awards: The ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) and Eli Lilly and Company sponsor a program to provide funding for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral female chemists to travel to meetings to present the results of their research. Awards are made on the basis of scientific merit and financial need. Funds may be applied only for registration, travel, and accommodations, and are restricted to travel to meetings within the United States. Grant funds are limited, but there are some funds designated for undergraduates.

Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship

ACS Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship: Provides scholarships for female undergraduate majors in chemistry or related disciplines who are beginning their junior or senior year of study. Sponsored by Paul Jones and the Alpha Chi Sigma Educational Foundation, the scholarship is a one-time award on the basis of both need and scholarship. The award amount is subject to available funding, but will be a minimum of $1,500 to defray tuition, books, and lab fees. Applicant must be a rising junior or senior female undergraduate student enrolled full-time at an accredited college or university, majoring in chemistry or chemistry-related science (pre-med students are not eligible) with a minimum overall GPA of 3.25, have completed research or plan to conduct research during undergraduate years, be a US citizen or permanent resident and able to demonstrate evidence of financial need according to an award letter from the  applicant’s institution and estimated unmet need for the upcoming academic year. Application deadline is May 1.

Charles D. Coryell Award

Charles D. Coryell Award: The Charles D. Coryell Award honors undergraduate students who have completed research projects in nuclear or nuclear-related areas. Each year there is a $1,000 prize to be awarded to the successful nominee(s). Contributions are judged on the basis of ingenuity, novelty, and potential usefulness. To be eligible, a student must have been an undergraduate at some time during the 12-month period prior to the deadline date for submission of applications for the award. The student may be sponsored by a faculty member at the home institution or by a research director at another institution where the student performed the work.

Travel Awards for Undergraduates Traveling to the National Organic Symposium

Travel Awards for Undergraduates Traveling to the National Organic Symposium: For undergraduate, graduate students, and post-docs: The Division of Organic Chemistry will provide up to 50 travel awards ($500/award) to help cover registration and expenses for the 48th National Organic Chemistry Symposium National Organic Chemistry Symposium at the University of Notre Dame. Applicants must be engaged in at least one significant research project, and have the intent to enter graduate school, post-doctoral work, academics and/or industry in chemistry. Applications must be members (or affiliate members) of the Division of Organic Chemistry.

Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship

Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship: Established by congress in 1986 to honor the career of Senator Barry Goldwater. These scholarships worth $7,500 encourage promising students to pursue a Ph.D. and a research career in engineering, mathematics or natural science fields. This is a national scholarship for sophomores or juniors. Applicants must be U.S. citizens, or national or resident aliens intending to obtain citizenship. Applicants must have a college grade point average of at least a 3.00 on a 4.00 scale.

Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research Program

Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research Program: To support scientific investigations in any field. Applicants must be seeking support for a new research project or a continuation of a previous research project. There are no citizen restrictions for this award.

ACS DOC SURF program (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship)

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF): These competitive fellowships ($6,000) are awarded on the merits of students’ research proposals, academic records, faculty recommendations and their passion for laboratory science. SURF fellowships will provide support for undergraduates in organic chemistry to carry out research at their respective colleges/universities in the summer between their junior and senior year. In addition, the program will provide financial support to enable recipients to visit an industrial campus in the fall for a dinner, award session, scientific talks, a tour of the campus and a poster session, where the results of the summer research investigations would be presented.

External Resources for Scholarship Searches

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Access Scholarships

Access Scholarships: Scholarship search tool striving to connect students with scholarship opportunities, helpful information, and resources that they need to be successful in their higher education journeys and beyond.

College Scholarships

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FastWeb

FastWeb: This service offers a free customized list of financial aid sources via a searchable database of more than 400,000 private sector scholarships, fellowships, grants, and loans from more than 3,000 sources for all levels of higher education and in all sorts of disciplines. Approximately 500 new scholarships are added to the database daily.