Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowships

  1. Home ›
  2. Opportunities ›
  3. Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowships

Since 2013, the Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowships have been offered to two outstanding graduate students at the University of Notre Dame who are investigating issues of high interest to the Institute. Each prestigious fellowship provides $25,000 of support towards a graduate stipend. Not only do the fellowships sponsor young researchers at key moments in their time at Notre Dame, they have also proven to be a springboard for follow-on careers in academic and corporate research.

Application 

The Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowship application is now closed. Stay tuned for future opportunities.

Applications submitted to Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowship will automatically be considered for the BIPH Summer Graduate Fellowship as well (only one application required).

Application Information

(Combine and submit these sections as a single PDF file)

  1. Cover page: Name, department/lab affiliation, and email address

  2. Applicant’s Background and Goals for Fellowship Training (maximum 2 pages)

    1. Doctoral Dissertation and Research Experience: Summarize your past research experiences and how they prepared you for this project.

    2. Training Goals & Objectives: Describe your overall training goals for the remainder of your training and how they relate to your career goals.

    3. Activities/Training: Describe the specific activities (e.g., coursework, workshops, skills acquisition) you will undertake to achieve these goals.

  3. Research Project Description (maximum 3 pages)

    1. Concisely state the background of your research, the aims of the proposed project, and the impact that the expected results will have on your research field(s).

    1. Describe the innovation and detailed experimental approach for the proposed research

    2. Citations should be separate from the research strategy section and have no page limits, but it is expected not to exceed 2 pages

    3. Title, project background, overview, and specific aims (maximum 1 page)

    4. Research Strategy (maximum 2 pages)

  4. A two-page CV for the applicant (CV template can be downloaded here)

Eligible students must be enrolled in the university in both the Spring 2026 and Fall 2026 semesters.

Each application will automatically be considered for any of the available fellowships, so students should only complete one application. Note, however, that the O’Brien Fellowship has a preference toward finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease. It is not limited to that disease area, but any application received that addresses PD will merit extra consideration for that specific fellowship.

General Formatting Guidelines

  • Font: Arial, Helvetica, Palatino Linotype, or Georgia typeface, a black font color, and a font size of 11 points or larger. (Symbol fonts may be used for Greek letters).

  • Margins: Standard 0.5” margins on all sides.

  • Spacing: Single-spaced.

  • Figures/Tables: Must be legible and may be in a smaller font size (not below 9 pt) and are included within the page limit.

Recommendation Letter

A letter from the student's faculty advisor must also be sent directly to biph@nd.edu and should include (maximum 2 pages):

    1. Training Plan: Describe the training plan for the applicant, including specific research skills that will be acquired and professional development opportunities.

    2. Assessment of the Applicant: The Sponsor’s assessment of the applicant’s qualifications and potential for a research career.

Questions

Please direct questions to Corrine Hornbeck at chornbec@nd.edu or (574) 631-7385.

FAQs

Q: Is this fellowship strictly for graduate student stipends, or can it be applied to post-doctoral research as well?
A: This fellowship is for graduate students only.

Q: If I will be graduating next spring, may I still apply?
A: Yes. Unused funds will remain with BIPH for funding of future fellowships.

Q: Is the fellowship available to U.S. citizens only?
A: No, international students are also welcome to apply.

Q: May this award be taken or used at another institution?
A: No, the student must be a Notre Dame student using the award here.

Previous Berry Fellows

2026 - Lara Ece Celebi, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, "Investigating Macrophage-Driven Repair Mechanisms in Obesity-Induced Myocardial Dysfunction"

2026 - Catherine (Katy) Price, Bioengineering, "Wireless Implantable Light-Emitting Devices (WILD) for Immunogenic Neoadjuvant Photodynamic Therapy of Breast Cancer"

2025 - Andrei Badilla Aguilar, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, "The role of biofilms on the fate of antibiotic resistance genes from cattle manure in flowing waters"

2025 - Gaeun Kim, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "Dendritic Cell-Derived Small Extracellular Vesicles for Enhanced T Cell Activation and Immunotherapy"

2024 - Thanh Khoa Nguyen, Integrated Biomedical Sciences, "The role of Cnr1 in multiciliated cell development in the zebrafish kidney"

2024 - Marlee Shaffer, Environmental Engineering, "Advancing Wastewater-Based Epidemiology for Enhanced Public Health Protection Against Pathogens and Antimicrobial Resistance"

2023 - Thomas Moran, Biological Sciences, "Investigating human endothelial cell function during SARS-CoV-2 infections"

2023 - Simon Weaver, Chemistry - Biochemistry, "Developing informatics tools for proteomics data analysis and identification of novel small proteins in Mycobacteria"

2022 - Caitlin Donahue, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Investigating increased intracellular pH in driving cancer cell behaviors and therapeutic relevance of decreased pH in limiting tumorigenic phenotypes"

2022 - Bingxin Yang, Materials Science and Engineering-Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "Smart Insulin Leak Detector"

2021 - Bradley Keegan, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Design, Synthesis, and Evaluation of Small Molecule Hsp90/Aha1 Inhibitors for the Reduction of Tau Aggregation in Neurodegeneration"

2021 - Lindy Sherman, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "N-Heterocyclic Carbenes as a Platform for Stable Nanoparticle-Based Biological Assays"

2020 - Lisa Minkoff, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Exploring the Utility of Polyclonal Aptamer for Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Detection"

2020 - Christiana Oh, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "Nanopore Electrode Array (NEA) - based Electrochemical Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) Immunosensor for the Detection of Cytokine Storms in Whole Human Serum"

2019 - Michael VandenBerg, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "Advancing Diabetes Care through Glucose-responsive and Affinity-mediated Polymeric Dual Hormone Delivery Devices"

2019 - Katie Morris, Biological Sciences, "Utilizing VRK1 Inhibitors in Combination with EpoAurorin to Induce Cellular Senescence as a Treatment for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma"

2018 - Daniel Erickson, Biological Sciences, "Improving therapeutic activity of recombinant monoclonal antibodies from silkworm Bombyx mori with transgenic mammalian glycoenzymes"

2018 - Cynthia Schreiber, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "New Approaches for Fluorescence-Guided Surgery of Ovarian Cancer"

2017 - Enrico Speri, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of the Oxazole Class of Antibiotics"

2017 - Yide Zhang, Electrical Engineering, "Fast, accurate, and noninvasive diagnostic and therapeutic techniques enabled by super-sensitivity, super-resolution, and super-penetration quantitative multiphotonmicroscope in living tissue"

2016 - Nameera Baig, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Molecular Imaging of Clinically Relevant, Chemically Communicating Bacterial Communities"

2016 - Nur Mustafaoglu, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "One-Step Diagnosis of Diseases Using Antibody Functionalized Nanoparticles"

2015 - Melinda Lake, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, "Development of a High Throughput Mechanical Phenotyping and Sorting Device"

2015 - Cody Narciso, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, "Reveal3D: Next generation cancer diagnostics and high-resolution 3D tissue imaging"

2014 - Md. Itrat Bin Shams, Electrical Engineering, "Photo-Induced Tunable Quasi-Optical Devices for THz Imaging and Beam Shaping/Characterization *Specific Objective in the next year will be: Photo-Induced Coded-Aperture Imaging for Potential Early Detection of Skin Cancer"

2014 - Kelsey Weigel, Biological Sciences, "The development of a novel immunotoxin-based therapy treatment for ErbB2-positive breast cancer"

2013 - Aamir Ahmed Khan, Electrical Engineering, "Multiphoton FLIM microscope for 3-dimensional imaging of tumor and dissolved gases in living tissue"

2013 - Hao Wang, Chemistry and Biochemistry, "Targeted imaging of membrane receptors on colorectal cancer cells by Tip-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS)"