Summer DH

Support for humanities Ph.D. students pursuing digital projects

About the Program

The Summer Graduate Fellowship in Digital Humanities (Summer DH) supports a small interdisciplinary cohort of Cornell Ph.D. students who together investigate approaches to digital scholarship through collaborative workshops, readings, discussion, and co-work on independent projects. The fellowship is a project of the Digital CoLab, sponsored by Cornell University Library and the Society for Humanities.

Time and location

The 2025 fellowship program will take place over six weeks, Monday, June 2 – Thursday, July 10, 2025, in person at Olin Library. Meetings will be held on about three weekdays per week, 10am – noon, excluding holidays. Exact schedule to follow. Fellows are expected to attend every meeting of the cohort, except in unusual circumstances that have been approved in advance.

Eligibility

Current Cornell Ph.D. students working in the humanities, who will continue to be enrolled at Cornell in the 2025-26 academic year, are invited to apply. Fellows are selected for their potential to benefit from the program, and their willingness and ability to contribute to a collaborative learning environment. Students who have expressed interest or applied in the past, but who did not participate in the Fellowship, are eligible to apply again. There are no technical prerequisites.

Requirements

  • Status as a Cornell Ph.D. student in a humanities or closely related discipline, and continued enrollment in the 2025-26 academic year.
  • Desire to explore digital approaches to research and teaching through workshops, readings, and discussions.
  • Commitment to contribute to a supportive, interdisciplinary summer learning community.
  • Commitment to building an independent digital project related to your scholarly goals in research, pedagogy, or public engagement. Methods that Summer DH can support include: computational text analysis; the design, visualization, and analysis of datasets and databases; network analysis; creation of digital collections and exhibits.
  • Residence in the Ithaca area during the six weeks of the fellowship period.

What the program provides

  • Small-group tutorials on digital scholarship tools, skills, and approaches, tailored to participants’ interests and prior experiences.
  • Orienting readings and discussions.
  • An introduction to practical aspects of developing, implementing, and managing complex digital humanities projects, ranging from technical considerations to broader scholarly impact.
  • Ongoing guidance and technical support for participants developing their own digital projects.
  • A stipend of $2000.

How to apply

Step 1: Express interest and meet with a librarian

Submit an interest form and schedule an individual meeting with CoLab staff to discuss your project idea. The purpose of this meeting is to help you to determine if your project idea is a good fit for the program’s capabilities, and if not, to identify other resources to support you. If you have any questions about applying for the program, please contact digitalcolab@cornell.edu or visit the CoLab during Office Hours.

Step 2: Submit an application

Access the Summer DH application at this link. Applications are due by Monday, March 24 at 9am ET. Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by March 31st, 2025.

Recent Summer DH projects

Explore descriptions of recent Summer DH projects, and a few examples by graduate students at other institutions. Some projects are public-facing and include accompanying links; others are not public-facing. For more project examples, please see the Digital Scholarship Guides.

Examples of digital collections, digital exhibits, and digital publishing

Examples of datasets, databases, and visualizations

Examples of computational text analysis