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Center for Advanced Genocide Research

Call for Applications

2026 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship
Summer 2026

 

Photo of a white woman looking at the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive on a computer screen. The photo is dramatically lit.

 

Call for Applications

2026 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship
Summer 2026

Deadline: March 31, 2026


The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites applications from USC undergraduate and graduate students for the 2026 Beth and Arthur Lev Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2026.

This research fellowship will be awarded to an outstanding USC undergraduate or graduate student from any academic discipline to conduct original research drawing on the unique resources in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at USC, including the Visual History Archive, the Holocaust and Genocide Studies book collection, and the Special Collections at USC Libraries. (Read more about these resources below.)

 

Eligibility and Approaches

This fellowship is open to USC undergraduate and graduate students from any academic discipline. Whether your background is in political science, art, global studies, psychology, or a creative discipline, these fellowships offer a rare opportunity to work with extraordinary archival resources, engage deeply with history and human stories, and pursue questions rooted in your own academic or creative interests. Projects need not focus solely on genocide but should draw meaningfully on USC’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies resources, which you can read more about below.

Past fellows have used USC’s resources to explore topics such as identity, migration, gender, human rights, memory, media, trauma, justice, resistance, and social movements, among others. Others have created original creative work – including film, poetry, literature, visual art, and computer games – informed and inspired by the testimonies they encountered.

Interdisciplinarity is one of the Center’s greatest strengths. Students from a broad range of fields have served as fellows, including from American Studies and Ethnicity; Anthropology; Art; Cinematic Arts; Comparative Literature; Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture; Creative Writing; English; English Literature; Game Development and Interactive Design; Global Studies; History; International Relations; Jewish Studies; Journalism; Law, History, and Culture; Media Arts and Practice; Politics, Philosophy, and Law; Public Policy and Leadership; Narrative Studies; Psychology; and Sociology. Students from other fields not listed here are equally encouraged to apply.

 

Fellowship Expectations

Fellows will join the Center’s intellectual community, receive mentorship, and gain experience that will contribute to future graduate and professional opportunities. Fellows 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 2026-2027 academic year.

Fellows will be expected to spend one month in daily residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research during Summer 2026 (which falls between the dates of May 18 and August 14).

Award decisions for the fellowships will be based on the originality of the research proposal.

 

Fellowship Award

The Lev Student Research Fellowship provides $1,500 support for undergraduate students or $3,000 support for USC graduate students.

The fellowship award will be paid during the fellow’s period(s) of residence.

 

USC Research Resources in Holocaust and Genocide Studies

The fellow will have access to internationally unique and continually growing research resources at USC, including 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 59,000 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.

 

USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research

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. For more information, visit our website here.

 

Past Fellows and Their Projects

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has a long record of advancing research by USC students.

Undergraduate student fellows: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025

Graduate student fellows: 2016, 2016, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

 

Application Instructions

To submit an application:

Email the materials below to cagr@usc.edu or submit them electronically here.

  • cover letter (with proposed dates of residency)
  • current CV/resume
  • research proposal (1-3 pages), where you explain what you want to study. Please include the central question(s) you plan to explore and the methods you will use to conduct your research.

The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2026.

 

Intrigued but don’t know where to start? Have questions?

Drop by our office in Verna and Peter Dauterive Hall (VPD) 301 or contact us at cagr@usc.edu. We are eager to consult with you about the ways in which these unique resources connect to your interests and/or to support you with developing your application materials.