Skip Navigation

Research Fellowship and Grant FAQ


We will continue to update this page as we receive new questions.

Student Questions:

Faculty Questions:

Proposal Technical Questions:

Answers:

--I am an international student, can I apply for any of these?
--I am a faculty member who has a foreign undergraduate student working on research with me, can I apply for an Undergraduate Research Fellowship to support this student?

Short Answer: No. Because we are a federally funded program, we can only award fellowships and scholarships to students who are U.S. Citizens or permanent residents.
Longer Answer: International students can receive funding in a round-about way. If their faculty advisor (who is a U.S. citizen) applies for the Faculty Research Grant, then the faculty member can use that money to support their science project, including providing wages to international students working on the project (unfortunately this will not work if the faculty advisor is not a U.S. citizen, see the next question).

--I am a faculty member but NOT a U.S. Citizen, can I apply for the Faculty Grant or Undergraduate Fellowship on behalf of a student?

Faculty who are not U.S. citizens can act as the advisor for a student that is a U.S. citizen, so you can apply for undergraduate fellowships on behalf of a student.
Faculty who are not U.S. citizens can apply for a faculty grant BUT the money can only be used to support students (who are U.S. citizens) in the form of either salary or supplies, no portion of the money can go directly to faculty members who are not U.S. citizens (so no summer salary) - in this case the award money will actually be placed in the names of the student(s).

--I am a student at a college/university that is not in Wyoming, can I apply for any of these?

Only students of the University of Wyoming or any of Wyoming's community colleges are eligible to apply for these fellowships. However, there are Space Grant Consortia in all of the 50 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico who run similar scholarship and fellowship programs in their states -- find the Space Grant in your home state.

--I am applying for an Undergraduate Fellowship, if I receive one, do I have the option of delaying the start of the fellowship to Fall semester if I also receive an internship position over the summer?

Yes, Undergraduate Fellowships may start in the summer, fall, or spring semesters.  However they need to be completed before the end of spring semester (before May of the year following their awarding -- so a 2008 Fellowship needs to be completed before May 2009).

--What is cost share from my advisor?

Here are some examples of cost share:

  • Cost Share may include actual money or in-kind funding.
  • Examples of cost share:
    1. Volunteer time donated by faculty advisor or other personnel
    2. Donation of time for which faculty advisor or other personnel were paid (PAR for UW employees) – i.e., the time the advisor spent advising the student
    3. Loan or donation of equipment by non-UW entities
    4. Funding of travel, supplies, or equipment for specific use for this project from other sources
    5. Discounts given because of educational status
  • These will eventually need to be documented (i.e., we will need copies of receipts, or letters stating volunteer time from the person who donated it; PARs are automatically credited).

All student proposals should include some amount of cost share for the time your advisor spends advising you (or working with you) on the project (#2 above). Your advisor is being paid by the university (or community college) but he/she is helping you work on your project (which we are funding). For UW faculty, this cost share is documented on a PAR ("Personal Activity Report" -- hopefully your advisor knows what these are, if he/she doesn't tell him/her to talk to the department's accountant about it, that person should know). For faculty at community colleges we will eventually need a letter stating the amount of time that was cost shared in order to credit it. Regardless of whether you enter this cost share in your proposal or not, we will bug all students and their advisors to fill out PARs for cost share during the time of the fellowship.

The way to include the advisor's time as cost share in your proposal is to estimate the number of hours your advisor will be helping you during the term of the fellowship (for instance you could say you are planning to meet once a week for one hour, and work for 15 weeks on the project, so your advisor will be meeting with you 15 hours total). Then find out how much your advisor makes in an hour, and use that to determine the equivalent amount of pay that time is worth (following the same example, if your advisor made $20 an hour then the total amount would be $300 over the 15 weeks). Enter that amount under "Non-federal Cost Share". So, you will need to talk to your advisor about this and make some sort of plan. We understand that this is just an estimate, so we won't hold you accountable for exactly that amount, but we will bug you for some amount.

It's also possible to include cost share from other sources, for instance, if your advisor has a grant that will be used to cover other costs related to this project, like buying supplies, paying for travel, etc. But this is not required.

--Can I include color graphics in my proposal?

Yes. However, since your proposal may be printed out by a reviewer who does not have a color printer, we recommend that your graphics still be understandable if they are printed in black and white.

--Does the five page limit on the Proposal Description include figures and references?

Yes. The five pages includes everything you need for your proposal, including figures, tables, and references.

--If I apply for the Wyoming Space Grant Graduate Fellowship and I am awarded a fellowship, do I have the option of delaying it for a year if other short-term funding comes through?

We have very limited flexibility in delaying graduate fellowships. The normal fellowship period starts with Fall semester. We may be able to delay a fellowship by one semester (starting in Spring rather than Fall) in very extenuating circumstances. However, we cannot defer a fellowship by a full year - all fellowships must commence by the start of the following Spring semester after they are awarded (so a 2008 fellowship must commence by Spring 2009 at the latest).

--Are benefits included in the $20,000/$10,000 (maximum) faculty award amount?

If you are using this for summer salary, then: Yes. Please include benefits in your proposal budget. Please note that faculty awards do not need to be used for summer salary, they can also be used for some supplies and services.

--Can I use my Space Grant award to purchase equipment?

No, Space Grant is not allowed to purchase anything considered "equipment". We use UW's definition of equipment, which is any one item or computer is considered "equipment" if it costs more than $1000. Anything that costs less than $1000 is considered "supplies" and can be purchased with a Space Grant award. [UW's definition of "equipment":
"Non-consumable movable items acquired with a net cost of between $1,000.00 and $4,999.99 and with a useful life of more than one year are non-capitalized equipment. Items costing $5,000.00 and over are with a useful life of more than one year are capitalized equipment. Equipment costs include instillation, shipping and travel charges."]

--My proposal document is over the 2MB size limit, do you have any suggestions of how I can make my file smaller?

Here are a few things you can try:

  • If you have graphics in your document, resize them to a smaller size before including them in your document (rather than resizing them to a smaller size after importing them to your document).
  • Remove graphics from your document that you don't really need.
  • Try converting your file to Adobe PDF format, for example you can use the TOM Conversion Service to convert a MS Word file (or a variety of other word processing formats) to PDF (note: TOM can't convert files larger than 10MB) - we were able to use this service to convert a 3.8MB MS Word file to a 1.9MB PDF. However, be sure to carefully look at the resulting PDF to make sure the conversion didn't cause any loss of information or strange formatting changes. (More conversion ideas.)

--I don't have MS Word or any other word processor that can write PDF, what should I do?
(related: I'm using WordPerfect to write my proposal, can I submit my proposal in that format?)

Our preferred file format is PDF, with MS Word as a secondary format. At the present we cannot deal with WordPerfect files. There are many file conversion tools available for free use which can create PDF files from a number of different formats, here are just a few:

Whatever method you use, we highly recommend that you carefully examine the resulting PDF file to make sure everything is formatted properly and no information was lost.

--How can I determine which version of Adobe Reader is currently installed on my computer?

First of all, open Adobe Reader. Then, along the top bar of menus, (left-)click on "Help", then (left-click) "About Adobe Reader", it should look something like this:


Once you click on "About Adobe Reader", a window should pop up that looks something like this:

The version number will be listed (in this example it is version 8.1.2). As long as your version is 7.0.0 or higher, then you should be able to use the PDF application form without any trouble. If you have version 6 or lower, then you will need to install a newer version of Adobe Reader in order to use the application form. The most recent version of Adobe Reader (for any operating system) can be downloaded for free from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html
It is recommended that you uninstall the old version before installing the new version.

--Nothing happens when I click on the "Submit by Email" button in the data sheet, what's going on?
--I'm using a Mac and I get the error "you must enter a valid e-mail address" when I click on the "Submit by Email" button but it doesn't give me anywhere to enter an e-mail address, what do I do?
(related: how do I set my default e-mail server?)

First, check that you are using Adobe Reader that is at least version 7 (instructions for checking the version). This is important because Adobe Reader version 6 may appear to let you fill out most of the form fields but the e-mail button will not work - however, if you use version 6 to fill out the form, we will not be able to read it properly when we open it in a later version (the formatting is messed up and the form will be lost so we can't use our automated programs to process your form).

Macs: If you are using a Mac, we have had problems reported with Macs (we don't know why) -- the e-mail button does not seem to work with some Macs (it will give an error along the lines of "you must enter a valid e-mail address" and will not open an e-mail). If this happens, you will have to manually open an e-mail window and attach the data sheet manually (see the alternative submission method below).

Check that you have a default e-mail server set up. In Windows:

  • Go to the "Start" menu, then "Settings", then "Control Panel"
  • In the "Control Panel", open "Internet Options"
  • In "Internet Options" go to the "Programs" tab
  • You should see "You can specify which program Windows automatically uses for each Internet service", followed by a list of services, including E-mail -- make sure your favorite e-mail program is selected.

Assuming your favorite e-mail program is selected, make sure you are logged into your e-mail account before clicking "Submit by Email".

Alternative Submission: if you really can't get the "Submit by E-mail" button to work (and you are definitely using Adobe Reader version 7 or higher), you can save the changes you made to the data sheet, open your e-mail server and compose a message as normal. Send the e-mail to "wsgc@uwyo.edu", with the subject as stated in the data sheet ("Undergrad Fellowship Application", "Graduate Fellowship Application", "Faculty Grant Application", "Faculty Education Grant", "CCT Scholarship Application" - please use the correct subject, we will be using e-mail filters to separate out the applications from the other normal e-mails we receive, we may miss yours if you do not use the correct subject!). Then attach the PDF data sheet you saved, as well as your proposal document, to the e-mail and send it.
Microsoft Help page for setting default e-mail clients
Additional info for users of Yahoo! Mail
Additional info for users of g-mail



NASA logo

To understand and protect our home planet,
To explore the universe and search for life,
To inspire the next generation of explorers
... as only NASA can