The Schmidt Family Foundation is once again generously funding research and mentorship awards for research in any field with clear links to environmental sciences for UCSB students. Strong emphasis for these awards is placed on advancing science that has direct applications to environmental problem solving, and fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in environmental sciences. These awards are open to UCSB-affiliated undergraduate and graduate students from all departments and is intended to support research primarily occurring before August 30, 2026.

Research Accelerator Awards

These awards facilitate graduate student research by covering salary, tuition, or fieldwork or laboratory costs. ($9,000 per student).

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Research Excellence Awards

These awards provide support to advanced graduate students to improve the overall quality of their research program, such as launching new experiments, carrying out needed field research, and performing additional analyses. Successful applicants are typically at a more advanced stage of their research than the Accelerator Award recipients. ($18,000 per student).

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Research Mentorship Awards

These awards support the development of graduate and undergraduate research pairings through a mentoring program that pairs an undergraduate with a graduate student mentor. Graduate and undergraduate students may apply jointly if a partnership has already been identified, or students may submit applications separately and will then be matched by the Fellows Program. ($9,000 per pair).

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Please note that while a student may apply for multiple Schmidt Awards, no student may receive multiple awards in a given award cycle. Previous Schmidt Award recipients are eligible if they are applying for an entirely new project and must state explicitly how this work is different. Funding is flexible and can be used, for example, to support field costs, or directly support both graduate and undergraduate students (e.g., through GSR, work-study, or hourly wages) to enable them to focus their time on research.

Funding is flexible and can be used, for example, to support field costs, or directly support both graduate and undergraduate students (e.g. through GSR, work-study, or hourly wages) to enable them to focus their time on research. Please note that this year for the mentorship awards undergraduates and graduate students may submit applications separately (and will then be matched by the fellows program) or jointly (if a partnership has already been identified).