Rowland Fellows Program

The Rowland Institute at Harvard seeks outstanding early-career experimentalists in all fields of science and engineering. The Rowland Fellowship provides an opportunity to establish an independent program in the rich intellectual environment of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Edwin Land founded the Rowland Institute of Science in 1980 to foster high-risk, creative research. In 2002, it became the Rowland Institute at Harvard with the mission of advancing the early careers of experimental scientists and engineers. The Institute is particularly interested in supporting scholars who have the potential to establish a ground-breaking research program in a field that bridges traditional disciplinary boundaries. Fellows receive full principal investigator rights and establish their labs in an interdisciplinary and interactive environment. The fellowship provides dedicated laboratory space, generous start-up funding for capital equipment, a yearly budget starting at $225,000 for general operations and personnel, and a salary beginning at $89,999 per year with full Harvard benefits. Fellows have the opportunity to teach undergraduates for at least one semester, receive mentoring for lab culture development, and access to shared research equipment throughout Harvard University. Staff scientists and engineers are available to work directly with Fellows to design and fabricate experimental set-ups. The Fellowship lasts up to five years with a flexible start date. Previous Rowland Fellows have gone on to extremely successful careers, mostly in academia, but also in industry and as founders of startup companies. The program accepts applications from a broad range of fields including physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and neuroscience, though it cannot support human subjects research or clinical research.