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Dissertation Year Award

2026-27 Psychology Dissertation Year Award (DYA) Application

Application Deadline: Friday, February 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM

Application form/portal is forthcoming and is not yet available. We expect to release application form in late December or early January.

Purpose of the Award 

The Dissertation Year Award is intended to support doctoral students within one year of completing and filing their dissertation. Awardees should be able to demonstrate both significant progress toward the dissertation and a clear, feasible plan for completion during the award year. 

Award Amount 

  • $40,000 in student financial support 
  • Standard tuition and fees (excluding non-mandatory fees, nonresident supplemental tuition, and professional degree supplemental tuition, if applicable) 

Eligibility Requirements 

To be eligible, students must:

  1. Advance to doctoral candidacy no later than the end of Winter Quarter 2026 (March 20, 2026).
    • Applications from students who apply for the DYA but do not advance to doctoral candidacy by the end of Winter quarter will be withdrawn from consideration.
  2. Be one of the following:
    • U.S. citizen
    • Permanent resident
    • International student (funding contingent on visa eligibility)
    • Undocumented student eligible for AB540 (funding dependent on AB131 remaining in effect)
  3. Plan to complete all degree requirements within 12 months of beginning the award.
  4. Maintain continuous enrollment in 12 units each quarter of the award year (not required for summer terms).
  5. Hold a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 during the entire tenure of the award.
  6. Not exceed 25% employment during the award period.
  7. Not have previously received a dissertation-year award funded by DGE or external dissertation-year award (e.g., Distinguished TA DYA, UC Presidents Pre-Professoriate Fellowship, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship).
  8. Cota-Robles awardees with multi-year extramural funding (e.g., NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program) are not eligible to apply for the Dissertation Year Award.
  9. Have not previously been nominated for the DYA more than once (second nominations allowed only for 2025–26 cycle; no second nominations beginning in 2026–27).
  10. Clinical students that match in the 2026 APPIC Internship Match will not be eligible for the 2026-2027 DYA.
  11. Students may apply for both the UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship (UC PPPF) and the DYA; however, awardees can accept only one.

Application Materials

Applicants must submit the following as a single PDF file (unless otherwise noted):

  1. Proposed Plan for Completing the Dissertation (max 4 pages, double-spaced, 11-pt font)
    • Must be written for a general academic audience
    • Includes:
      • An abstract that summarizes the following in a manner appropriate to the subject or discipline:
        1. Motivation, context and/or foreground for the research;
        2. Question or hypothesis being addressed;
        3. Theoretical framework, experimental approach or research methodology
        4. Preliminary findings;
        5. Innovation, significance and/or impact of the work
        6. Between 150 to a maximum of 300 words in length. Essential that it be written for faculty who are not experts in the student’s field of research
      • A research plan that describes the current status of the research and the plan for addressing the remaining research aims/goals to complete the dissertation. This section may include images, graphs, and/or tables, if appropriate.
      • A detailed timeline with projected monthly progress for the remaining research, writing, revision and defense of the dissertation
  2. Unofficial Graduate Transcript
    • Must include Fall 2025 grades
    • If “Incomplete” grades remain, include a brief explanation of plans for resolution
    • Transcript printed from MyUCLA is acceptable
  3. Personal Statement (max 2 pages, double-spaced, 11-pt font)
    • The statement must include the student’s career goals after receiving the degree
  4. Curriculum Vitae or Resume
    • Education (degrees earned and in progress, with dates; date of advancement to doctoral candidacy)
    • Extramural, departmental and DGE awards and prizes (include year and amount)
    • Published and submitted manuscripts, if any, during the student’s doctoral program at UCLA. Provide full citations, including start/end pages. Do not include manuscripts in preparation.
    • Conference presentations, if any, during the doctoral program at UCLA. Indicate the conference date and place, and whether it was a poster or oral presentation. If there are multiple authors/presenters, place an asterisk by the student’s name.
  5. Two Letters of Recommendation
    • Letters must be signed and on department letterhead
    • One must be from your dissertation chair
    • Recommenders will receive submission instructions from the department once applicants enter their names
    • Letters are due by the application deadline

Submission Instructions

  • All application documents (except recommendation letters) must be combined into one PDF and submitted via the department’s submission form (link forthcoming on the department website).
  • Recommenders will upload letters directly to the secure portal.

Late or incomplete applications will not be reviewed.

Award Requirements

Awardees must:

  • File their dissertation within 12 months of beginning their DYA tenure.
  • Maintain full-time enrollment and GPA requirements.
  • Keep employment under 25% for the duration of the award.
  • Students holding another fellowship/award administered as a GSR Fellow/Trainee appointment (e.g., NSF, F31, T32, etc), which requires 50% employment, are not eligible to hold a DYA.

Failure to meet requirements may result in suspension or cancellation of funding.

Activation Term Options

Awardees will be able to select one of the two activation options shown in the table below. Note that the DYA does not cover the fee(s) related to the dissertation filing fee.

OptionSummer 2026Fall 2026Winter 2027Spring 2027
1$13,333 stipend + Tuition/Fees$13,333 stipend + Tuition/Fees$13,334 stipend + Tuition/Fees
2$10,000 stipend$10,000 stipend + Tuition/Fees$10,000 stipend + Tuition/Fees$10,000 stipend + Tuition/Fees

Review Process

Applications will be reviewed and ranked by the Psychology Graduate Student Awards Committee.

Award decisions will be announced in April 2026.

For questions, please contact: Graduate Advising Supervisor