CALL FOR SUMMER FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS

We’re offering 8 total fellowships this year and collecting applicants from February 2nd to March 6th (11:59 PM PST). Required application materials are listed in the form linked below. Within this form you can choose to apply to one of the following fellowships or both (if eligible).

Apply HERE

The applications will be passed on to a faculty review committee, and their top choices will be sent to Graduate Division for final selection.


Helen Hansma Research Accelerator Award (6x awards) – Support 6 talented grad students conducting kelp / seagrass / climate change research with full summer funding. These fellowships will provide $10K in funding per award.


BD Biosciences Research Accelerator Award (2x awards) – There is a preference for graduate students who are helping to develop novel technologies and techniques in the fields of biological engineering and quantitative biosciences, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to cellular and molecular analysis. These fellowships will provide $8k in funding per award.

Coffee Hour

Come join us for some delicious ice cream or some hot coffee and yummy donuts from SloDoCo!

Our next social hours on the MSI balcony will be:
01/21/26 Coffee Social from 8:30 – 10 am
02/11/26 Ice Cream Social from 4 – 5:30 pm
2/23/26 Coffee Social from 8:30 – 10 am
03/12/26 Coffee Social 8:30 – 10 am

Visit our “Join Us” Page to stay updated on upcoming events 🙂

Social Events

Stay tuned for updates!  

Professional Events

We’ll also be hosting a lightning talk workshop in April for those who want to brush up on those skills, with the specific aim of helping us learn to share our science with the public. Keep an eye out for more details!

Outreach Opportunities

Volunteer for Her Science Lab, May 24th!

We’re planning an outreach event in May geared towards Santa Barbara local middle school students interested in STEM. We are looking for graduate students to design and lead workshops to garner student interest in STEM-related topics. This is a non-binding interest form, we will reach out to you with more information once we determine your workshop could be a good fit for our event.


Workshop Details:

  • Workshops will have at least one instructor and up to 10 students.
  • Workshops should be roughly 1 hour long.
  • Workshops can cover any STEM topic(s) you like with the goal of getting students excited about engaging in STEM activities.
  • We are planning to have students rotate through workshops so you will lead the same workshop 3-5 times over the course of the day.

Previous workshops have been on 3D printing, bioluminescence, the science of chocolate, quantum computers, and more!

Recent Events