About the Bilinski Fellowship at BML
UC Davis has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Bilinski Educational Foundation to award ten Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowships at Bodega Marine Laboratory for 2024-2025.
Read the Award Announcement for 2024-2025
Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski’s life goal was to be “independent and challenged intellectually.” They strongly valued self-sufficiency, a sense of ambition, and above all, responsibility. Their legacy continues in their nonprofit corporate foundation that provides fellowship funds for post-secondary education for students who have demonstrated and will maintain both the highest academic achievement and good moral character.
Bilinski fellowships are awarded to outstanding doctoral students whose selected projects, based at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, exhibit innovation, collaboration, and are a key component of the student’s final dissertation. The awardees below successfully bridged the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities in their project proposals. As a result, recipients were each awarded $25,000 to assist with tuition, stipend, and research expenses.
About The UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve
The UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) is a leading research and education facility at the forefront of national marine labs in providing science that serves society and informs solutions to complex environmental challenges. For over 50 years, BML’s multidisciplinary research discoveries have greatly advanced ocean and coastal health, and its hand-on educational programs have been training the nation’s next generation of leaders in marine science and policy.
Perched on the iconic bluffs of Bodega Head, and situated on the Bodega Marine Reserve, BML sits at the epicenter of one of only four coastal upwelling regions in the world – areas of extreme biological productivity – that are rich for research discoveries. The Lab is also adjacent to a State Marine Protected Area and two National Marine Sanctuaries, yet only 65 miles from San Francisco Bay, one of the most impacted estuaries in the world. BML offers a front-row seat in which to study the real-time impact of commercial, recreational, and residential activity along the coastline and to assess the effectiveness of current and future marine conservation efforts.
BML is also the core research and educational facility of the recently established UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute (CMSI), which links BML with the more than 70 marine science faculty from all across the UC Davis campus. CMSI unites and coordinates the multifaceted community of UC Davis marine researchers, including many from the social sciences arena, so that together they can identify the most effective strategies for sustaining our irreplaceable coastal environment. CMSI expands upon BML’s strong foundation with new programs, including a popular Marine and Coastal Sciences undergraduate major.
Fellowships are open to any full-time UC Davis doctoral student (US Citizens or Permanent Residents only). Students must be enrolled full-time at UC Davis for the duration of the fellowship. Recipients must be PhD candidates or on track to advance to candidacy within one year of application submission. Students who have previously been awarded this Fellowship are eligible to apply again; however, the proposed work cannot be a continuation of that work, and preference will be given to new applicants.
Students must include a description of why residency or a significant amount of time spent at Bodega Marine Laboratory is needed for their proposed work. Students should plan to complete the proposed research by June 30, 2025.
Required Elements:
- Proposal (see specifications below)
- Budget, using the budget template provided
- Budget justification for how the $25,000 fellowship will be spent
- Letter from the student's advisor
Proposal:
Prepare and upload a proposal that includes a description of your proposed project and how it is linked to your dissertation. The proposal must explicitly bridge the natural sciences, social sciences, and/or humanities, and must involve time spent at Bodega Marine Laboratory as part of the proposed work. Proposals should avoid jargon, and should be written for a general audience. Proposals should clearly state goals and deliverables, and should focus on broader impacts. While funding from this Fellowship can support your ongoing dissertation research (which should be described in your proposal), your proposal should focus on the unique, interdisciplinary work that is the focus of this Fellowship.
Successful proposals will:
- Be clearly written, and include a coherent description of your project, motivations, goals, and deliverables. The proposal should include how your proposed, interdisciplinary project is linked to your dissertation.
- Emphasize the cross-disciplinary deliverables and broader impacts that are the focus of this Fellowship. Students might accomplish their broader impacts through strong collaborations with experts who are substantially involved in the design and execution of the project. However, collaborators are not required; students might accomplish their goals without dedicated collaborators. If collaborations are critical to the proposal, collaborator contributions should be well thought out and confirmed. Projects that include robust and clearly described deliverables that explicitly bridge the natural sciences, social sciences, and/or humanities will be highly rated.
The proposal should not exceed three pages (single space, minimum 10pt size font). Allowed file types: pdf, docx
Budget and Budget Justification:
Students must provide a budget, using the budget template, as well as a separate budget justification for the $25,000 fellowship. The budget justification should include a description of how this funding will allow the student to complete a project that otherwise would not be possible without this financial assistance, and should clearly justify all expenses. You may receive Bilinski funding concurrent with other fellowship/grant support, but be explicit about how the Bilinski funding is addressing a financial need not covered by your other fellowship(s)/grant(s). The Bilinski Fellowship allows for maximum flexibility in the use of the funds. For the budget, you may consider including:
- Stipend: Paid to the awardee and taxable as income. You may use your graduate group GSR Step rates to calculate your stipend, but that is NOT required and you may justify a salary above or below those rates. You must be devoted to your dissertation full-time for quarters in which you receive Bilinski funding for your stipend.
- Tuition & Fees: Paid directly to UC Davis and not taxable. You must be devoted to your dissertation full-time for quarters in which you receive Bilinski funding for your tuition and fees.
- Research Expenses: Paid through a UC Davis account and not taxable. Can include supplies, funding for collaborators, etc.
- Travel expenses: Reimbursed through a UC Davis account and not taxable. Can include mileage to and from Bodega Bay, travel to research sites, etc.
- Professional Development: Can include conference and workshop fees, etc.
For research and/or travel, please provide details of the specific expenses to be covered.
Students must also submit one letter of support from their PhD advisor. Letters should be emailed directly to Ellie Fairbairn.
Applications are closed at this time.