Fellowships

Graduate Student Research Fellowship

Open to to all graduate students attending universities in the greater Philadelphia. the fellowship has been established to encourage emerging scholars to engage with the rich physical and digital manuscript resources at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, including the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection and the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts. Working closely with SIMS staff members, the fellow will have the opportunity to develop a project and gain experience working in a collaborative, digital humanities environment.

Applications for the 2025–2026 fellowship year are now closed. Please check back in early 2026 for next year’s call for applicants.

Learn more and apply Fellowship recipients

SIMS / Herbert D. Katz Center Distinguished Fellowship in Jewish Manuscript Studies

The fellowship, funded in part by the David Ruderman Distinguished Scholar fund, pairs a prominent scholar in any field of Jewish studies with a manuscript in one of our collections. Our goal is to bring distinguished scholars to the Penn Libraries to research the university’s rich holdings in Judaic manuscript material. Fellows will share their discoveries and expertise at a public lecture sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at Penn and by offering a mini-course through edX.org (PennX-Datz1.1.x).

Fellowship recipients

SIMS / Italian Studies Fellow in Italian Manuscript Studies

This annual invited fellowship is sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies, the Italian Studies section of the Department of Romance Languages, and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The recipient spends one week at Penn working on manuscript material from the library’s collections of rare books and manuscripts, offering, in exchange, a graduate-student workshop and a lecture on the research conducted while in residence.

Fellowship recipients