MLSC Student & Postdoc Mini-Grants

• Fall 2026: 
  • Submit proposal by September 28, notification by October 12
  • For accepted proposals for travel: 
    • Submit travel request through Concur by October 23
    • Complete travel by March 1
  • For accepted proposals for non-travel expenses:
    • Submit requests for Tango accounts, purchases, or RA payments by October 23
    • All funds must be disbursed by January 29
• Spring 2027: 
  • Submit proposal by February 1, notification by February 15
  • For accepted proposals for travel: 
    • Submit travel request through Concur by February 26
    • All travel purchases (including post-travel reimbursement) must be complete by June 9.
  • For accepted proposals for non-travel expenses:
    • Submit requests for Tango accounts, purchases, or RA payments by February 26
    • All funds must be disbursed by June 1

Any graduate student or postdoc in a language science field, who is a member of the Language Science Center, is eligible to submit one proposal per semester. The submitter should be a first author on the project (i.e., please don’t have your research assistants submit proposals to get around the one-proposal-per-semester rule).

Proposals must focus on one specific project related to language science. Proposals for conference travel may not be combined with proposals for other research activities/expenses. 

Eligible expenses include, but are not limited to:

• Travel for conferences 
• Travel for data collection or training
• Participant payments (through Tango) or incentives
• Research supplies
• Software/service fees for research tools
• Payment for research assistants

Note the deadlines above for when the funds must be used. Funds that remain unused after the deadlines must be returned to MLSC.

If you have questions about the budget or eligibility of specific expenses, please contact Rochelle Nelson (rnelson9@umd.edu) and cc Shevaun Lewis (shevaun@umd.edu). 

Proposals must be submitted through this form. 

1. On the form, enter your information:
   1. Name
   2. UID
   3. Department
   4. Name of departmental administrative staff for coordinating payments
   5. Proposal type (conference travel or other research activities)
   6. Project title
   7. Collaborators on this project
   8. Total funds requested from LSC
   9. Start date
   10. End date
   11. IRB approval (if relevant): If your proposal involves collecting data from human subjects, provide the IRB protocol number and approval date. 
2. On the form, upload a one-page PDF document with your proposal. It should include the following:
   1. Your name
   2. Project title
   3. Project summary (up to 200 words): Explain the question, hypotheses, and method/rationale. If the proposal is to present completed work at a conference, briefly summarize the findings. 
   4. Justification (up to 100 words): Explain why the research is important, both for the field and for your personal scholarly development. If the proposal is for conference travel, explain why it’s important for you to present your work at this conference. 
   5. Budget: list itemized costs (estimated or actual), including dates of expenditures. See sample budgets below. 
   6. Other funding sources for this proposal. List the source and amount of any other funding. (If you’re applying for conference travel, please confirm that you will apply for the Goldhaber and/or ICSSA, or that you have already used those awards for previous conference travel.)
   7. Use of AI: One sentence to describe whether and how you used AI to prepare the proposal. For example:
      “After drafting the project summary and justification, I used ChatGPT to help reduce the word count.”
      “I used Claude to draft the short project summary based on the 500-word abstract I submitted to the conference.”
      “I did not use any AI tools to prepare this proposal.”

Please contact Shevaun Lewis (shevaun@umd.edu) with any questions about the application process.

Award recipients will be asked to submit a short summary (100-200 words) of the results or impact of the research activities afterwards. They will also be encouraged to present their work at LSC events such as Language Science Day or Language Science Lunch Talks. 

Gavkhar Abdurokhmonova (HDQM)

Ellie Taylor-Robinette (HDQM)

Xianglin Zhang (HDQM)

Lucia Zepeda-Rivera (HDQM/HESP)

Kuan-Jung Huang (HESP)

Seongsil Lee (HESP)

Ciaran Stone (HESP)

Sarah Boukendour (LING)

Tessa Culleton (LING)

Katherine Howitt (LING)

Alba Jorquera (LING)

Sebastián Mancha (LING)

Sathvik Nair (LING)

Utku Turk (LING)

Mine Muezzinoglu (NACS)

Yoonjee Hong (SLA)

Ruirui Jia (SLA)

Mireia Toda Cosi (SLA)

Tetiana Tytko (SLA)

Micheline Wilson (SLA)

Rasha Alkhateeb (TLPL)