Call for Applications
2025 Charles E. Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Call for Applications
2025 Charles E. Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Deadline: March 30, 2025
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from undergraduate students for the 2025 Charles E. Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
The fellowship provides $7,000 support and will be awarded to undergraduate students from any university in the world and any academic discipline who will advance research in Holocaust and Genocide Studies through the use of unique research resources at USC, including the Holocaust and Genocide Studies book collection, the Special Collections at USC Libraries, and the Visual History Archive. (Read more about these resources below.)
Each Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow will be expected to spend two months in daily residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research in Summer 2025 (which falls between the dates of May 19 and August 15). Each fellow will be expected to play a role in the activities of the Center and to give a public presentation based on their work and findings during the following academic year (2025-2026).
Award decisions for the fellowship will be based on the originality of the research proposal.
Founded in 2014, the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research distinguishes itself from other Holocaust and genocide research institutes by offering access to unique research resources and by focusing its research efforts on the interdisciplinary study of currently under-researched areas.
USC Resources
Internationally unique and growing research resources at USC include the extensive Holocaust and Genocide Studies collection at USC Libraries, which contains 30,000 primary and secondary sources including the original transcripts of the Nuremberg trials and the materials of the New York Life Insurance settlement regarding the Armenian genocide. Unique primary sources in the Special Collections at USC include the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, which also houses the private papers of dozens of emigrants from the Third Reich, as well as private collections from Jewish Holocaust survivors and liberators.
The Visual History Archive is a collection of over 58,000 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, including the Rwandan, Armenian, Guatemalan, Cambodian genocides, the Nanjing Massacre in China, anti-Rohingya mass violence, and war and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of testimonies are life history interviews in which interviewees discuss their lives before, during, and after genocide and mass violence. With interviews conducted in 70 countries and in 44 languages, testimonies capture both the individual experience of mass violence and the social and cultural history of the 20th century on a global scale. Learn more about the Visual History Archive here.
Application Instructions
To submit an application:
Email the materials below to cagr@usc.edu or submit them electronically on the Fellowships page of the Center’s website. (Visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/cagr/fellowships/scheidt-summer-undergraduate-research-fellowship/ and click Apply.)
• cover letter (including proposed dates of residency)
• current CV
• research proposal (1-3 pages), which should include a project outline and description of methodology
• recommendation letter from a faculty member or teaching assistant (Your letter-writer must submit the recommendation letter directly to cagr@usc.edu.)
For questions, please contact cagr@usc.edu.
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has a long record of advancing research by undergraduate students. Read about some of our past undergraduate fellows here: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023