Opportunities

Discover transformative educational opportunities at the Mansueto Institute.

The Mansueto Institute offers grants, fellowships, research assistantships, and other unique educational and research opportunities from the undergraduate to the faculty levels, as well as to working professionals.

Sign up to receive regular notifications about our opportunities, including fellowships, grants, jobs, and more.

Faculty Grants

Urban Innovation Grants

The Mansueto Institute provides faculty Urban Innovation Grants for research and other work at the University of Chicago focused on how cities work, grow, and develop, with the aim of advancing more sustainable and equitable urban futures. Be part of an ecosystem of urban innovation.

 

Student Grants

Urban Innovation Grants for Student Organizations

The Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation provides Urban Innovation Grants for Student Organizations for University of Chicago student events, research, or other efforts focused on critical issues and topics impacting cities. This opportunity is open to undergraduate and graduate student groups at the University of Chicago.

 

Post-graduate & Graduate Fellowships

Institute Postdoctoral Fellows

Mansueto Institute Postdoctoral Fellows are post-doctoral researchers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives who are interested in building a scholarly understanding of cities. The fellowships are full-time, year-long appointments that can be renewed for a second year, subject to a mutual agreement. Positions are structured between the Mansueto Institute and one of the University of Chicago’s Departments or Schools.

Applications for the 2024-2025 cohort are closed.

Kreisman Graduate Fellows Program

The Kreisman Graduate Fellows Program is a cohort of University of Chicago graduate students from across fields of study who are committed to pursuing careers in housing research or practice. The program runs for one academic year and is open to all Masters and PhD students at UChicago, such as those studying law, policy, social services, social sciences, data science, and business. Fellows receive a stipend ($4,000) to support their professional development in the form of an internship or research project of their own design in the Spring or Summer quarters.

Applications for the 2024-2025 academic year will open Spring 2024.

Urban Doctoral Fellows

The Urban Doctoral Fellows Program provides a yearlong, supervised cohort experience training up to ten PhD students whose research focuses on urban issues, with an emphasis on strengthening scientific writing, effective presentations, and multimedia communications. Fellowship provides funding of up to $1,000 per fellow to cover registration, hotel, meal and transportation costs for presentations at academic conferences. The program includes twice-monthly lunchtime meetings to review peer papers and presentations, as well as discussions of how distinct disciplines engage in urban research.

Applications for the 2024-2025 cohort are now open; apply by May 10th, 2024.

Community Research on Climate and Urban Science (CROCUS) Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Community Research on Climate and Urban Science (CROCUS) postdoctoral fellowship provides the opportunity to conduct novel research as part of a flagship project from the U.S. Department of Energy to create a network of Urban Integrated Field Laboratories for the study of climate change in local urban communities across the U.S. The project is led by Argonne National Laboratory with the University of Chicago and other higher education institutions in the greater Chicago area, as well as four community partners.

Applications are currently closed for the postdoctoral fellowship.

Graduate Research Assistantships

Local Data Journalism Initiative

Leveraging the University of Chicago’s robust data science infrastructure, the Local Data Journalism Initiative establishes partnerships between news organizations and university-led data science teams to conduct ambitious investigative journalism on issues affecting cities, using the highest caliber analytics tools and approaches. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students can apply to be part of a research team supporting investigative journalism stories related to critical issues affecting cities.

Applications are currently closed for data scientist positions and will re-open in 2025.

 

Urban Research Corps

The Mansueto Institute invites UChicago graduate students with diverse academic backgrounds to participate in a new data science program called the Urban Research Corps. The URC is a research incubator that produces relevant insights about the fundamental processes driving urban change and develops tools to help build more sustainable, equitable, and connected cities. The URC combines the Mansueto Institute’s interdisciplinary approach with technology and data to build generalizable capabilities that accelerate the practice of sustainable urban development at the local and global scales. URC participants will have the opportunity to design, develop, test and deploy computational methods to answer fundamental questions and design scalable tools.

Applications for the Urban Research Corps are currently closed.

Environmental Frontiers

Environmental Frontiers gives UChicago students a scientific and practical understanding of urban sustainable development, starting with projects on campus. A graduate research assistant leads undergraduate researchers, all working under the guidance of faculty to develop research and applied projects that explore and enhance campus sustainability, with an eye toward broader impact into whole urban areas and their neighborhoods. Applications for the EF Campus Graduate Lead Research Assistant are now open.

Undergraduate Research Assistantships

Environmental Frontiers

Environmental Frontiers gives UChicago students a scientific and practical understanding of urban sustainable development, starting with projects on campus. Students work under the guidance of faculty to develop research and applied projects that explore and enhance campus sustainability, with an eye toward broader impact into whole urban areas and their neighborhoods. Applications for the summer 2024 undergraduate cohort are now open.

Data Catalog Project

The Mansueto Institute is excited to announce a new project to develop a comprehensive Data Catalog as part of a broader initiative to promote the sharing of data assets across campus. For the first phase of the initiative, we are seeking an undergraduate student to expand a growing catalog that details information about different urban, regional, and spatialized data sources. Once finalized this directory will be something that we hope to crowdsource across campus and enable other researchers, students and faculty to build upon. We hope to expand the current draft version of the data catalog next quarter. Applications are currently closed.

Local Data Journalism Initiative

Leveraging the University of Chicago’s robust data science infrastructure, the Local Data Journalism Initiative establishes partnerships between news organizations and university-led data science teams to conduct ambitious investigative journalism on issues affecting cities, using the highest caliber analytics tools and approaches. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students can apply to be part of a research team supporting investigative journalism stories related to critical issues affecting cities.

Applications are currently closed for data scientist positions and will re-open in 2025.

 

For Working Professionals

Local Data Journalism Initiative

Leveraging the University of Chicago’s robust data science infrastructure, the Local Data Journalism Initiative establishes partnerships between news organizations and university-led data science teams to conduct ambitious investigative journalism on issues affecting cities, using the highest caliber analytics tools and approaches. Journalists can apply to the Local Data Journalism Initiative by proposing a data-driven investigative story or series of stories related to critical issues affecting cities. Selected journalists will work with the University of Chicago data science team during the summer of 2024.

Applications are currently closed for journalist and data scientist positions and will re-open in 2025.