Faculty Fellows/Professorships

Eligibility: Applicants must hold a terminal degree in a relevant field, received the terminal degree within 8– 20 years, and hold a faculty or researcher appointment at Penn State.
Financial support range: up to 50% FTE effort for 12–24 months
Deadline: Rolling

The Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) at The Pennsylvania State University (“Penn State”) invites applications for the 2026–2027 Mid-Career Research-Practice Partnership Fellows Program. This Program is supported, in part, by a William T. Grant–Institutional Challenge Grant (ICG) awarded to Penn State. The ICG is designed to strengthen an existing research–practice partnership between Penn State’s Child Maltreatment Solutions Network (CMSN) and the Pennsylvania Office of Children, Youth, and Families (OCYF). A primary goal of the initiative is to enhance the capacity of Penn State and OCYF to collaboratively produce and use timely, relevant research evidence to improve postsecondary outcomes for transition-age youth in foster care. Fellows will serve as key partners in this work, contributing specialized expertise, strengthening cross-sector collaboration, and supporting the development and application of actionable research to inform policy and practice.

A major focus of the Penn State ICG is to build capacity to generate and make better use of research evidence at Penn State and the OCYF by engaging mid-career researchers with expertise in child welfare or education policy and equity. The Fellows Program is intended to support the career development of researchers as they work with the OCYF to pursue a shared research agenda. It will provide experienced researchers an opportunity to engage in collaborative, applied, and policy-relevant research. At the same time, the Fellows Program will give researchers an opportunity to foster a culture of research collaboration and support evidence-based practice within OCYF, ensuring that interventions and policymaking are grounded in rigorous research.

Course releases for mentored, new interdisciplinary projects to build a novel line of sustainable research
Eligibility: Penn State tenure line faculty at the rank of Assistant Professor and who conduct research in the social and behavioral sciences at UP and the College of Medicine are eligible

The SSRI Mentored Faculty Fellows Program supports the career development of Penn State early career faculty in social and behavioral sciences at all Penn State campuses.

The mentored Faculty Fellows award supports training in a new area of research, an extension of existing research into new areas and/or the development of new interdisciplinary collaborations aimed at building sustainable research and securing external funding. Funding is provided to the home department for one year to support protected research time for the applicant and to support research mentors via summer supplements. Priority will be given to proposals that are aligned with SSRI’s mission to foster novel, interdisciplinary research to address critical human and social problems at the local, national, and international levels and are likely to lead to future external funding.

2025 Awardee

Katie Bateman, Teacher Education, Behavioral and Educational Science, Harrisburg
Neurodivergence in Emerging Adulthood: Implications for Teacher Education and Workforce Inclusion.

The goals of this fellowship will be to lay the groundwork for further empirical studies of the emerging adulthood neurodivergent teacher and the supports that will enable them to thrive and remain engaged in the highly need work of K-12 education. Teacher attrition, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, has created ongoing financial challenges for districts. Nationally, 15.7% of educators leave their teaching positions each year (Rumschlag, 2017), and they are not being replaced by an equal number of new teachers (Fuller, 2023). Burnout, extended exposure to stressful situations resulting in physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, is one source of attrition, particularly for novice teachers (Nguyen & Kremer, 2022; Rumschlag, 2017). Teacher burnout also negatively affects students’ academic achievement and motivation (Madigan & Kim, 2021). One potential mitigating factor is that novice teachers, often new college graduates in their early twenties, are also navigating emerging adulthood, a distinct and critical transitional stage in human development. Emerging adulthood is a time of increasing independence and autonomy for young people (18-29) in which they explore and develop their identity (Arnett, 2000).

Professorship focused on developing research focused on relationships between the human brain and human behavior (psychological and brain science)
Eligibility: Tenure track Penn State faculty members in the interdisciplinary fields of psychological and brain science at University Park and the College of Medicine who are within 10 years of having completed the Ph.D. at the start of the award period.
Financial support range: up to $20,000 per year for 3 years

The Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship will provide supplemental funding to social and behavioral science faculty members at Penn State whose research is focused on relationships between the human brain and human behavior (psychological and brain science).  The award will rotate every three years, providing seed money (approximately $20,000 per year) for innovative research projects and programs.

Dr. Graham attended Penn State as an undergraduate from 1935 to 1938. As a young woman whose career aspirations in the sciences challenged the conventions of the period, she was grateful for the education, encouragement, and opportunities she received at Penn State, which included a fellowship for her first year in graduate school at Yale University.  After completing her doctorate in psychology at Yale in 1942, Dr. Graham went on to become a renowned scholar in developmental psychology and psychophysiology.  Her work serves as a foundation for what is now the rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of developmental neuroscience.  Dr. Graham received many honors during her career, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, President of the Society for Research in Child Development, and Penn State’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1983. Her daughter, Mary B. Graham, created this Early Career Professorship to honor the work of her late mother.

Eligibility: Full-time University faculty members, employees, post-doctoral scholars, and fellows, and/or full-time graduate students or medical students enrolled at the University.
Financial support range: based on the available endowment income

We seek proposals for novel research focused on important health issues facing mankind. The Lloyd Prize is funded by an endowment established by Dr. Tom Lloyd who served on the faculty of the College of Medicine for 46 years.

Eligibility: Full-time University faculty members, employees, post-doctoral scholars, and fellows, and/or full-time graduate students or nursing students enrolled at the University. This competitive prize rotates through the following colleges at the University, with the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing taking place in 2025. Subsequent years will be the College of Health and Human Development, Eberly College of Science, College of Engineering, College of Information Sciences and Technology, College of the Liberal Arts, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and College of Medicine. The recipient of the award must plan to be employed/enrolled at Penn State for the duration of the research project.

Funding: The selected recipient will receive a prize based on the available endowment income. Sixty percent (60%) of the available funds can be provided either through payroll or placed in a protected research account. An additional thirty percent (30%) of available endowment income will be placed in a protected research account.

The Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) is thrilled to announce Jennifer Kowalkowski is the winner of the 2025 Lloyd Prize for Innovative Health Research.

2025 Loyd Prize for Innovative Health Research - Jennifer Kowalkowski

Kowalkowski is an assistant professor of nursing at the Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing. She is also an affiliate faculty member with the Tressa Nese and Helen Diskevich Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, the Population Research Institute, and the Rock Ethics Institute. Her project, “Developing a Conceptual Model to Describe How Farmers Experience Occupational Stress”, will build on her previous work of addressing mental health and well-being among rural and agricultural populations. Read more here.

2024 Loyd Prize for Innovative Health Research - Guodong Liu

Liu is a professor of public health sciences in the division of health services and behavioral research with joint appointments as professor of neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry and behavioral health at the Penn State College of Medicine. He is also the director of the Center for Applied Studies in Health Economics (CASHE). His project "Psychometric Assessments via an AI-Powered Conversational Journal: Transforming Measurement-Based Care for Mood and Anxiety Disorders" aims to develop a framework of continuous mental health assessment that leverages generative artificial intelligence (AI) to collect and derive patients' mental health status more frequently and conveniently than traditional methods. Read more here.

Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) call for the inaugural SJRC Equity Fellows for the 2025/2026 Academic Year
Eligibility: All Penn State faculty are eligible regardless of appointment type (tenure-line, teaching, clinical, research, etc.), rank, or campus location.

The Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) is seeking applications for inaugural SJRC Equity Fellows during the 2025/2026 Academic Year. SJRC Equity Fellows are expected to engage in work, together or individually, that aligns with the mission of SSRI or CTSI.

The purpose of this fellowship is to help support SJRC efforts to foster change in policies and practices towards a culture of inclusive excellence across the University. SJRC Equity Fellows will engage in cross-cutting work that aligns with our Penn State values, strategic plan, and aligns with the mission of the institutes. This work can take various forms, shaped by the goals and background of the Fellow.