Funding your master's education and gaining practical experience

The following fellowships are available to help make education more affordable for current EPHR students. Additionally, students may choose to gain professional experience through the internships listed below.

Fellowship Opportunities

Fellowships are a great way to help fund your master's program. They may also help you make career connections that will become useful in the future. 

  • The Adel Ait-Ghezala Graduate Research Fellowship is available to graduate students who are full-time enrolled students in a master's or doctoral program at American University. The fellowships are intended to support applied, educational, or policy-relevant research programs designed to improve the lives of the citizens of developing countries. This is a competitive fellowship. Students must be making satisfactory academic progress (SAP) toward their degrees in order to be eligible. To learn more, contact the Office of Graduate Studies and Research at 202-885-3753 or gradstudies@american.edu.
  • The Fulbright US Student Program offers research, study and teaching opportunities in over 140 countries to recent graduates and graduate students. The program includes several types of awards, the most common being the Fulbright Study/Research Award, a traditional award opportunity where a candidate designs a proposal for a specific country, and the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program, which places grantees in schools overseas to supplement local English language instruction and to provide a native speaker presence in the classrooms. To learn more about the Fulbright, contact the Office of Merit Awards at 202-885-1854 or meritawards@american.edu.
  • The DACOR Bacon House Foundation Fellowship offers $10,000 tuition-only grants for study toward a master's degree in international affairs. Typically, 11 schools participate in this program, including American University's School of International Service, and nominate three candidates based on merit. The Education Committee then interviews the nominees and selects one winner from each participating school.

Internship Opportunities

Please note that the following list is representative and non-exhaustive.

  • Academy for Educational Development 
  • American Academy for the Advancement of Science 
  • Brookings Institution
  • Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 
  • Center for Advanced Studies
  • Ethics Resource Center
  • Institute for Policy Studies 
  • Institute for Women’s Policy Research 
  • Institute of Religion and Public Policy
  • Nonviolence International
  • Public Defenders Service
  • Search for Common Ground
  • Urban Institute
  • US Congress
  • US Department of Education
  • US Department of State
  • US Institute of Peace 
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars