Become a Committee Member for the National Fellowship Program

Each year, Graduate Women In Science (GWIS) awards competitive fellowships to emerging women scholars, advancing the participation and recognition of women in scientific fields through our annual National Fellowship Program. A crucial part of this process is the recruitment of highly-qualified subject matter experts to review applicant proposals. We receive more than 200 applications per year and each application is evaluated by a minimum of three expert reviewers, resulting in over 600 reviewers involved in the evaluation process annually.

Members of the National Fellowship Program Committee are key contributors to reviewer recruitment, and do the important work of identifying, contacting, and corresponding with professionals willing to review proposals. If you are a Committee Member with an advanced degree (i.e., MS, PhD, etc.), you may also serve as a reviewer for applications in your area of expertise but are not required to do so.

NOTE: You may NOT serve on the National Fellowship Program Committee if you submit an application during the current funding cycle.

Committee Member Contributions and Timeline

GWIS members can indicate their interest in serving on the National Fellowship Program Committee through our interest form (see link below). You will be contacted and notified of your status as a committee member in early January 2026. Committee Members will receive access to a Shared Drive which includes how-to resources and a Committee Member Manual with all necessary instructions.

Your first task as a Committee Member is to “reserve” a subset of 5+ applications for which you will find expert reviewers. Applications will have already passed compliance and will be separated into their respective disciplines (see list of subject areas below). Committee members are encouraged to reserve applications in their field of expertise. You will register on our Committee Member Portal to claim your reserved applications and begin recruiting and assigning expert reviewers.

Reviewer recruitment is the most crucial duty of Committee Members. You must find 3+ reviewers per application and ensure that reviewers complete their evaluations by the deadline of Friday, May 15th, 2026 at 5:00 PM EST. We encourage Committee Members to begin their reviewer recruitment early (e.g., mid-February) to guarantee that each application receives at least three evaluations.

Detailed instructions will be available to you on our Shared Drive, as well as during a Meet & Greet information session in January 2026.

Upon successful completion of their reviewer recruitment and at the end of the application evaluation cycle, Committee Members will receive a letter of acknowledgement for their service to the GWIS National Fellowship Program.

Link to the National Fellowship Program Committee Member Interest Form

Please follow the link above to complete your Committee Member interest form by Friday, January 9th, 2026. Forms received after this time will not be considered for the current year, but will be included in our correspondence for the next cycle.

If you have any questions about serving as a Committee Member for the GWIS National Fellowship Program, please contact us at npf@gwis.org.

Subject Areas Included in National Fellowship Program

 
Anthropology, Astronomy, Cell Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Biochemistry, Developmental Biology, Ecology, Engineering, Evolutionary Biology, Food Science, Genetics, Genomics, Geology, Immunology, Medicine, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Nutritional Science, Paleontology, Physics, Physiology, Plant Biology, Psychology, Toxicology, or Zoology.

*Note: this is not an exhaustive list, but are the main research fields from which we receive applications for review.