The Global Asias Initiative at UMBC is now offering the fourth and final round of its student research fellowship in Global Asias in the amount of $500. We’re currently accepting applications for interns in Spring 2026. Applications are due October 12, 2025.
This spring, the format for the fellowship will be a 3-credit undergraduate internship with Asian Studies or American Studies. The intern will be working with the Howard County Historical Society (HCHS) to support increasing their archival material on the Asian American Community.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
- Review the full position description and requirements
- Reach out to either Tamara Bhalla (American Studies – tbhalla@umbc.edu) or Professor Fan Yang (Asian Studies – fanyang@umbc.edu) to ask them to serve as your Faculty Supervisor should you be selected for the internship
- By 11:59pm on October 12, 2025: Submit responses to the following questions to Dr. Tamara Bhalla (tbhalla@umbc.edu) and Priya Bhayana (priyab@umbc.edu). Please keep your total response to 250 words maximum.
- 1) What interests you about this position?
- 2) Please describe your prior experience with gathering archival material, if any (experience is not required). If you don’t have direct professional experience in this area, please describe what skills you have that you would bring to this position.
- 3) Please describe your prior experience with community outreach, if any (experience is not required). If you don’t have direct professional experience in this area, please describe what skills you have that you would bring to this position.
TIMELINE:
Deadline for Application: Sun, Oct 12 2025 by 11:59pm
Applicants Notified of Decision: Wed, October 22, 2025
Spring 2026 Course Registration Opens: October 27, 2025
STIPEND DISBURSEMENT:
Payment will be distributed to the student as a stipend in two $250 amounts at the beginning and the end of the semester.
- If selected, students will have to complete a short onboarding process
- If students are not already employed by system, they will also have to fill out an I-9
CONTACT INFO:
Please reach out to both Dr. Tamara Bhalla at tbhalla@umbc.edu and Priya Bhayana at priyab@umbc.edu with any questions.
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The UMBC Global Asias Initiative’s student research fellowship program is proud to have supported the following students & projects in our previous cycles:
Fall 2024: Tazmira Sultana ’25 – MA in Public History. The fellowship supported Tazmira’s work conducting oral history interviews with Bangladeshi diaspora in New York as part of her thesis project “Between Two Shores: A Historical Analysis of Bangladeshi Diaspora, Identity, and Influence in the United States”
Spring 2025: Grace Reeb ’25 – MA in Master’s in Texts, Technologies & Literature. This fellowship supported her thesis work on “Han and Disability in Korean American Women’s Memoir” which applies a Critical Disability Studies lens to Literary Analysis of Korean American Women’s Scholarly and Adoptee Memoirs.
Fall 2025: Jenny Zhao – PhD Candidate in Clinical-Community Psychology. The fellowship is supporting Jenny’s qualitative research on the well-being of Rohingya women in the United States and their post-settlement adaption.