Walden University’s Fellowship Program Allows Doctoral Students to Shine

The best online universities have an abiding commitment to academic excellence and scholarship. Their culture of greatness is multifaceted and dynamic. It’s built on expert-driven coursework, purposeful degree programs, industry-standard accreditation, first-class faculty, and life-changing fellowship programs.

Colleges and universities that offer fellowships demonstrate their commitment to students and academia. Walden University knows that to stay a leader in quality distance education, it must continually evolve and grow. The accredited university’s new doctoral fellowship program is a prime example of its ongoing commitment to excellence.

PhD Fellowships for Scholar-Practitioners

This Walden fellowship program was offered to new doctoral students in the PhD in Management and PhD in Psychology programs. In selecting the inaugural group of 23 fellows, Walden looked for doctoral scholar-practitioners with a dedication to academics, research, professional development, and social change. The fellows hail from diverse backgrounds and bring expertise and professional experience from areas such as business management, clinical psychology, information technology, school counseling, workforce education, and international business.

What Are Fellowships?

The definition of a fellowship varies based on the program and where it’s offered. In the United States, most fellowships for graduate students come with financial awards that help fund research, education, and teaching. As there is generally a competitive process involved in receiving a research fellowship, the awards are considered prestigious. Colleges and universities distinguish themselves by offering multiple fellowship programs.

Why Is Social Change Important to This Fellowship?

Walden University has a long-standing reputation for graduating students who share the university’s passion for creating true transformational change that improves the lives of others. The fellows selected for Walden’s program are doctoral students and agents of social change who are dedicated and passionate about their individual scholarly topics and the impact their body of work might someday have on others.

The topic of social change is so important to the university that it has a separate program, the Walden Social Change Fellowship. It supports Walden’s mission of uniquely effecting positive social change worldwide and is awarded to applicants whose proposals reflect the university’s mission to foster social change through research and the education of scholar-practitioners.

What the PhD Fellows Will Do

These 23 Walden fellows are focusing their research interests on relevant and contemporary issues that include sustainable innovation, global trade, cultural studies, understanding depression through automated measures of facial expression, neuroscience of trauma, and effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on business and management.

Besides conducting research, the Walden doctoral degree candidates will work closely with faculty members to further develop their experience and knowledge. This well-rounded program prepares the fellows for maximum academic and professional growth.

Support for Fellows

Student support through any academic journey is vital to success. At Walden, world-class student support is one of the accredited university’s pillars of excellence. And students in its fellowship programs can count on it, too. These Walden PhD fellows will attend monthly educational workshops led by Walden’s subject matter experts on topics such as doctoral writing, career pathways, and developing scholarly identity. Put simply, Walden doctoral candidates bring their topic and their passion, while Walden delivers the resources to help them be successful, every step of the way.

Fellowships Change Lives

Fellowship programs yield innovations and discoveries that radiate around the globe. For proof, just look to ScholarWorks, Walden’s online repository of student and faculty research, which includes the work of some Walden fellows. Open to the public, these works have collectively garnered such interest that there have been more than 4 million downloads from 207 countries.

Dr. Aimee Ferraro is an ethnographer, epidemiologist, past Walden fellow, and core faculty member in Walden University’s School of Health Sciences. She shared research from her project, “The Socio-Ecological Factors Impacting Zika Virus Transmission in Shantytowns of Lima, Peru,” with the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization and Peruvian Ministry of Health to inform future Zika virus risk communication efforts and prevention programs.

“Being a Walden fellow helped me contribute to positive social change because it connected me to a wider community of people who could support my work. It helped me disseminate my findings further,” Ferraro said. “It helped me have funding so that I could give the participants in my study something back. It helped me to connect with the Walden community for collaboration and further research as I continue projects in the future.”

Even as they begin their research fellowships, many of Walden’s new PhD fellows are changing lives within their communities, volunteering as coaches and youth mentors and working with at-risk youth.

Earn a Degree Online

Walden is dedicated to providing the most relevant and rewarding online degree programs for working professionals seeking advanced degrees. Perhaps that is why Walden is the No. 1 conferrer of doctoral research degrees.¹ The university offers more than 80 degree programs, with coursework taught by distinguished faculty members, more than 100 of whom are fellows and competitive grant winners. Walden’s prestigious fellowships are another hallmark of its dedication to academic excellence.

When you partner with Walden to advance your education, you can accelerate your career. And with the knowledge and experience you gain, you may just start changing the world.

Walden University is an accredited institution offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs online. Expand your career options and earn your degree using a convenient, flexible format that fits your busy life.

¹Source: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Database (IPEDS). Retrieved July 2018; includes 2017 preliminary data and all classifications of instructional programs (CIP) codes. A doctoral research degree is a PhD or other doctoral degree that requires advanced work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation based on original research or the planning and execution of an original project demonstrating substantial artistic or scholarly achievement.

Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, www.hlcommission.org.