Rowland Fellowship

Job Details

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.

To qualify, applicants should currently be in the process of either completing their PhDs and/or have received their PhD after May 1, 2025. Fellows must have completed their doctoral degree prior to starting their Fellowship term.

Edwin Land founded the Rowland Institute of Science in 1980 to foster high-risk, creative research. In 2002, we became the Rowland Institute at Harvard when we joined the University with the mission of advancing the early careers of experimental scientists and engineers. In 2024 we moved from our original building to main campus to be closer to collaborators and university resources. In our founder’s tradition, we are particularly interested in supporting scholars who have the potential to establish a ground-breaking research program in a field that bridges traditional disciplinary boundaries. Previous Rowland Fellows have gone on to extremely successful careers, mostly in academia, but also in industry and as founders of startup companies.

The benefits of a Rowland Fellowship include:

• Fellows will have full principal investigator rights and will establish their labs in an interdisciplinary and interactive environment, in the rich intellectual environment of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Fellows will be provided with dedicated laboratory space, and ancillary spaces as needed (ex. tissue culture); generous start-up funding for capital equipment, depending on the Fellow’s research program; a yearly budget starting at $225,000 for general operations (lab supplies, travel, etc.) and the hiring of personnel (postdoctoral fellows, postbacs, undergraduates); and, a salary that begins at $89,999 per year with full Harvard benefits.
• Fellows may have the opportunity to teach undergraduates during their Fellowship, to enable contact with students (ideally in an active research setting, rather than in a classroom), both to help Fellows recruit talented students to their labs and to provide teaching experience that will help them in any career they choose.
• Staff scientists and engineers are available to work directly with Rowland Fellows to design and fabricate new experimental set-ups. Shared research equipment is available at facilities within the Institute and also throughout Harvard University (e.g. the Center for Nanoscale Systems, and the Bauer Life Science Core Facility).
• Fellows will receive mentoring to develop a productive lab culture, support for scientific writing and budgeting, alongside ongoing support for career development throughout the Fellowship period, including leadership training and access to Harvard’s Core for Mentorship Excellence. The Fellowship lasts up to five years, with a flexible start date; incoming 2027 Rowland Fellows will have start dates July – December 2027.

How to Apply

Only applications submitted through the Harvard Careers website will be considered for the position.

Application Information

Applicants should upload the following materials:

1. a 250 word “elevator pitch” to describe your research goals to a general audience,
2. a Statement of Research (three page limit including references), describing your research proposal and, if relevant, a summary of any recent work that supports the planned experiments,
3. a curriculum vitae (CV),
4. a Vision Statement (one page limit) to describe how your personal values and experiences in academia inform your plan for a productive and supportive culture within your group,
5. and, contact information for three or four references (automated emails will be sent requesting letters of recommendation direct to your references that includes their submission deadline.)

Deadline

2027 Rowland Fellowships: The deadline for applications is Saturday, August 1, 2026 at 11:59PM EDT.