The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) continues to fund prestigious software fellowships that recognize advanced graduate students and postdocs pursuing the development of software infrastructure, middleware, and frameworks that will benefit the broader field of computational molecular sciences, including biomolecular and macromolecular simulation, quantum chemistry, and materials science. MolSSI Software Fellows receive specialized training in state-of-the-art software design principles and tools, and they engage in outreach and educational efforts organized by the MolSSI. Each Fellow is assigned a mentor among the Institute’s Software Scientists, who oversee their software development efforts and training. In addition, Fellows are encouraged to spend a minimum of one week each year at the Institute headquarters at Virginia Tech to interact with the Software Scientists and other MolSSI staff and visitors.
During its second phase (Years 6-10), the MolSSI will only be offering Seed Fellowships for which both graduate students and postdoctoral associates are eligible. These six-month Fellowships will give recipients the opportunity to work with scientists at the MolSSI in order to implement recommended best practices, putting the Fellow’s project on a firm foundation.
Graduate Student Fellowships:
- A generous stipend of up to $20k over the six-month fellowship period (plus tuition and required fees);
- Travel allowances sufficient to fully cover visits to the MolSSI headquarters, as well as participation in MolSSI workshops or summer schools;
- Access to MolSSI computational resources, including NSF supercomputers, Virginia Tech Advanced Research Computing facilities, and advanced experimental hardware provided by the Institute’s industrial partners.
Postdoctoral Fellowships:
- A generous stipend of up to $25k over the six-month fellowship period;
- Travel allowances sufficient to fully cover visits to the MolSSI headquarters, as well as participation in MolSSI workshops or summer schools;
- Access to MolSSI computational resources, including NSF supercomputers, Virginia Tech Advanced Research Computing facilities, and advanced experimental hardware provided by the Institute’s industrial partners.
Fellowship competitions are held twice annually, with application windows open between February 15-April 1 and August 15-October 1.
Eligibility and Selection Criteria: The MolSSI Software Fellowship program is presently limited to graduate students and postdoctoral associates at accredited U.S. academic institutions, but you need not be a U.S. citizen to apply. Graduate student Fellows are expected to be enrolled full time at their home university, and postdocs must be fully employed or have an offer of full employment prior to acceptance of the award. The MolSSI Software Fellowships are an equal opportunity program open to all qualified persons without regard to race, gender, religion, age, physical disability, or national origin. Awardees may accept other concurrent awards that do not require a significant time or service commitment.
MolSSI Software Fellows will be selected by the MolSSI Science and Software Advisory Board based on (1) the quality of the applicant’s software research proposal and its relevance to the Institute’s goals; (2) the applicant’s research productivity, including previous software-development efforts; (3) previous academic performance; and (4) external references.
Note: All MolSSI Software Fellowships are subject to continued NSF support.
Application Requirements: A complete MolSSI Software Fellowship Application must include:
- Project proposal (maximum of two pages);
- Current curriculum vitae;
- Undergraduate transcripts (graduate applicants only); graduate transcripts (all applicants);
- Examples of previous software development products (e.g. source-code repositories);
- Two letters of support, one of which must come from the applicant’s current research adviser.
Additional Requirements: All software, documentation, and other resources developed by the Fellow under the auspices and guidance of the MolSSI will be made freely available to the computational molecular sciences community under an open-source license approved by the Institute’s Board of Directors.
The next fellowship competition will open on 15 February 2022 for fellowships beginning 1 July 2022; we will be announcing the next Seed Fellowship competition via email and Twitter in early 2022.
Inquiries to: fellowships@molssi.org
