2022-2023 Call for Nominations

The Katzin Prize will be used as a recruitment tool to attract the top academic doctoral candidates applying to UC San Diego. The cohort will be a select group of scholars, demonstrating outstanding talent and promise. Over time, the Katzin Prize will be awarded to students who represent the full spectrum of graduate study at UC San Diego, from the fine arts to the physical sciences.

Eligibility

This prize is available to incoming Ph.D. graduate students in all graduate academic programs who will commence graduate study at UC San Diego in Fall of 2022.
Katzin Prizes will be awarded to outstanding incoming Ph.D. students for 2020-22 in any of the following divisions:

Arts & Humanities, Division of Biological Sciences, Jacobs School of Engineering, Physical Sciences, Rady School of Management, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Social Sciences and Health Sciences.

Masters candidates are not eligible.
MSTP students are only eligible for support during their years in a Ph.D. program and a compelling case needs to be made as to how the Katzin Prize would retain them at UC San Diego to complete the Ph.D. portion of their studies
International students are eligible
Students must be enrolled full-time at the time of award

Award

Each prize will provide $10,000 of annual funding to the recipient, allocated for each year of study, and renewable for up to five years (support totaling $50,000).

Each award of $10,000 will be funded by The Katzin Prize Endowment Fund, which was established by Jerome and Miriam Katzin as a generous gift of $4 million for an endowed fellowship and to support graduate students.

The prize funding must be over and above the financial support package offered to the student by his or her home department because it is intended as a mark of distinction. All financial support packages should meet or exceed the minimum level as outlined here: https://collab.ucsd.edu/x/xXRdB
Successful candidates are expected to attend all Katzin Prize events and provide annual written updates on the use and impact of funds from the prize.
Recipients are expected to write a thank you/introduction letter to the donor.

Nominations

Each eligible predoctoral graduate program may nominate two qualified students. Use Slate to nominate your students for the Katzin Prize. The following items are required for a complete nomination package:

Nominate and confirm the applicant for admission in Slate
Faculty Nomination Letter
Financial Support Letter
- Include details about the multi-year support package offered by the department
- The financial commitment offered to the student should adhere to the provisions outlined in the Graduate Student Funding Reform Memo. For more details about this, please visit the Graduate Division Collab website.

If the above materials are not submitted on Slate by the deadline, the student's application packet will not be considered for that round.

For more instructions on how to nominate your students in Slate, see Graduate Admission's Slate User Guide for Nominating Students in the Fellowship Workflow.

Note: When nominating students for the Katzin Prize in Slate, use the Fellowship - Department Nomination Form and Letter material type. See screenshot below:

Graduate Division Campus Partners > Katzin Prize > KatzinPrize_MaterialTypeSlateNomination.png

If one of your nominees is selected but ultimately decides to pursue studies at another institution, the department may not nominate another prospective student.

Deadlines

There will be two deadlines. Programs will be notified of successful candidates within two weeks and will be expected to make efforts to encourage the student to commit to UC San Diego in a timely fashion.

The first deadline is February 15, 2022.
The second deadline is March 15, 2022.

Payment Details

Named fellows who enroll at UC San Diego and are eligible for financial support will receive a $10,000 stipend per year for five years, totaling $50,000.

Fellows will be paid a $1,000 monthly stipend for 10 months (September-June) and fellows can expect to receive the first payment on or around October 1st each year.

Results 2022 - Round 2

Admitted Student Name	Department/Program
Grace Elizabeth McIntyre	Biomedical Sciences
Sean Edward Grisham O'Brien	Computer Science
Coryna Ogunseitan	Anthropology
Emiliano Salomón	Philosophy
Zaiyao Zhang	Experimental Psychology

Results will be finalized each summer as incoming students accept/decline admission and fellowship offers.

Results 2022 - Round 1

Admitted Student Name	Department/Program
Samantha Almonacid	Political Science
Matt Lukacz	Communications
Jessica Metzger	Physics
Diego Urucharta Patino	Nanoengineering
Ifsha Zehra	Communications

Results will be finalized each summer as incoming students accept/decline admission and fellowship offers.

Past Recipients

Learn more about all past and present Katzin Prize Awardees on our website: https://grad.ucsd.edu/financial/fellowships/katzin-prize/index.html