Internal Award
Term Length: 10 weeks of semester
US Citizenship Not Required

This fellowship is for full-time, currently enrolled Northeastern undergraduates who possess significant prior engagement with the frameworks, methods, and techniques of research or creative endeavor in their field, whether through independent projects, employment, or co-op. Based on this prior engagement, applicants should be ready and able to demonstrate a notable degree of independence in the development and execution of projects, while remaining in close conversation with a faculty mentor.

The Summit Fellowship would be an especially good fit for students in their third year of study and above who have a history of progressively deepened engagement with research or creative work in their field.

PEAK Experience Fellowships are not able to support internal or external Co-op projects

If your project involves human subject research:  you will need to clear your project with Northeastern’s Institutional Review Board. Review their website to understand that process.  Questions? Attend their office hours, or send an email.

Applications are evaluated for their overall quality, feasibility, originality, and potential to contribute to a student’s intellectual, personal, and professional development. As a recognition of students who are nearing the “Summit,” we are especially interested in knowing how applicants’ prior engagement with the field has heightened their skills and their ability to think like a researcher or creative practitioner—i.e., to approach challenges from the perspective of a biologist, historian, screenwriter, economist, etc. Applicants should be sure to explain their prior experience and how it has prepared them to work with independence, expertise, and confidence.

The selection committee also considers factors such as the student’s academic record; stated reasons for wishing to become involved in research or creative endeavor; alignment of the project with larger intellectual, personal, and professional goals; the faculty mentor’s relevant expertise and depth of involvement; and the safety, practicability, and ethics of the project.

Fellowships are competitive and funding is not guaranteed.

The PEAK Summit Fellowship offers up to $2000 as a stipend. This money can be divided with your PI to cover the costs of project materials if necessary. PEAK Fellowship funds cannot be applied to tuition.

Fellowship funds are distributed to the university account of the project’s faculty mentor if used for project materials.

Summit Fellowship Awardees will have the opportunity to demonstrate their high-level skills, creativity, and initiative while undertaking research and creative projects and deepening their relationships with their project’s faculty mentor. Summit Fellowship Awardees join the PEAK fellows cohort and receive all of its benefits, including the opportunity to present works-in-progress to peers, engaging in guided reflection and goal-setting, and advising by the staff of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

The fellowship term is 10-weeks of the semester.

The application consists of several components: an online form, a narrative proposal (see elements below), a timetable, résumé(s), transcript(s), and a statement of support from the project’s faculty mentor.

• Human Subjects Research: If the project involves human subjects or personal data, there should be clear evidence of Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval or exemption (IRB approval, or confirmation of IRB exemption, must occur before the PEAK Application is submitted) Learn about IRB and get started here.
• Vertebrate Animals Research: If the project involves working with non-human vertebrates, there should be clear evidence of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approval, waiver or anticipated approval. (IACUC approval must occur before the PEAK Application is submitted) Learn about IACUC and get started here.

Each of these components is described in detail below and will be completed separately. You will use Northeastern’s Internal Fellowships Portal to submit your proposal materials and to solicit the letter of support from your mentor.

The elements of the application are:

The Online Application Form
This collects your biographical and demographic information and the basic information about your project, such as its title and the total amount of funding you are requesting. Because we are already collecting this information, you do not need to include a cover sheet with your narrative proposal.

The Narrative Project Proposal (800-1000 words)
The proposal should be both concise and intelligible to readers outside your discipline—please write for an audience of educated non-specialists. The proposal should contain the following elements:

About the Learner

• Describe the experiences that sparked your curiosity and familiarized you with relevant questions, methods, and techniques up to this point.
• Describe your current level of skill and confidence in your field at both the conceptual (i.e., recognizing questions/problems that are interesting and important) and practical (i.e., using field-specific techniques to investigate those questions) levels.
• How do you plan to consult with and seek guidance from your faculty mentor throughout the project?
• Identify three concrete learning objectives that will emerge from this project and how you will meet them.

Purpose and Significance

• Give a brief but specific statement of the original question, problem, or artistic area that the project seeks to explore.
• Clearly and concisely convey why the project is important, both within your field and more broadly.

Objectives and Methods

• List the objectives for the proposed research or creative endeavor.
• Provide a specific description of the research or creative methods being applied in the project—how are you going to attain the listed objectives, step by step?
• Consider potential challenges that might arise in undertaking the project and how you might respond.
• Describe the resources (such as facilities, equipment, supplies, expert advice, partnerships, funding) that will be necessary to complete the project and any plans you have in place to access these resources.
• Tell us when and for how long the various stages of the project will take place. (While you will also provide a separate timetable, please be sure to explain the timing of your project narratively here.)

Outcomes, Evaluation, and Dissemination

• Explain the milestones, benchmarks, and criteria that you will use to assess and, if necessary, adjust your project as it progresses.
• List the expected outcomes from the proposed research or creative endeavor.
• Describe how you will evaluate the project’s outcomes.
• How do you plan to share your work? PEAK Summit Fellows should plan to present their projects at RISE and should consider with their mentors whether an external conference or publication might be appropriate as well.

Timetable

Prepare a detailed, week-by-week timetable outlining the specific steps and duration of your proposed course of action for carrying the project to completion. Include how many hours you plan to dedicate to working on the project each week. Please also note when your project begins and ends. All projects must be carried out during the term for which the applicant is applying. While projects can continue beyond the fellowship term, applicants should describe specific and attainable  goals for the project to be tackled during the fellowship term. (Recall that project timing should also be discussed in the project narrative.)

Résumé (1 page)
Include a current résumé.

Transcript
Include your most recent academic transcript. Unofficial transcripts are acceptable.

Faculty Mentorship

To ensure meaningful mentoring relationships and equitable distribution of faculty resources, each faculty mentor may support a maximum of one PEAK Summit Fellowship applicant per semester. Faculty mentors are expected to provide dedicated guidance and spend sufficient time with their PEAK Fellow during the project term.

You should arrange to have a statement of support from your faculty mentor submitted by the proposal deadline, indicating the mentor’s thoughts on the merit, feasibility, and safety of the project, as well as their willingness to mentor and guide the student during the duration of the project term.

The online application system will prompt you to enter your faculty mentor’s contact details and solicit a letter from them; be sure to do this sufficiently far in advance of the deadline to allow your mentor time to submit their recommendation.

Questions for the faculty mentors are:

• Please list three learning outcomes you aim for this student to take away from the PEAK Summit Fellowship, and how you will support the student to reach those outcomes.
• PEAK Summit Fellows are pursuing independent research and developing new skills to better understand and contribute to their field. Please share your plans for mentoring the student over the course of the project. Please let us know how frequently you anticipate interacting with the student and how you plan to provide feedback on the project’s progress and its results.

If you are working on a project outside of Northeastern with an external mentor, you must have a Northeastern faculty member ALSO serve as a faculty mentor. The Northeastern mentor will attach their letter of support through the fellowships application portal, please attach a letter of support from the off-site project mentor as part of your application materials by having them email it directly to URF@northeastern.edu.