About the Fellowships

Thanks to the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is pleased to offer the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being (formerly called the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect). These fellowships are designed to identify and develop a new generation of leaders interested in and capable of creating practice and policy initiatives that will enhance child development and improve the nation's ability to prevent all forms of child maltreatment.

Doris Duke fellows receive an annual stipend of $30,000 for up to two years to support the completion of their dissertation and related research at their academic institution. Up to 15 fellowships are awarded annually. Fellows are guided by an academic mentor whom they select; fellows also identify a policy or practice mentor to assist them in better understanding how to frame their research questions with an eye toward maximizing policy and practice relevance.

Because the promotion of child well-being and the prevention of child maltreatment require knowledge and collaboration from diverse fields, the program is multidisciplinary in scope and approach. Fellows are selected from a range of academic disciplines, including—-but not limited to—-social work, child development, public health, medicine, public policy, education, economics, psychology, and epidemiology. In order to maximize the opportunities for interdisciplinary learning, Chapin Hall is building a sustainable peer learning network among the fellows and mentors through a series of in-person meetings, webinars, conference calls, and social networking opportunities.

To sign up for updates on the fellowships, please fill out the form on the Contact page. For any other questions, please e-mail ddfellowships@chapinhall.org.

Fellowships Staff

Deborah Daro, Senior Researcher and Fellowship Chair

Lee Ann Huang, Researcher and Fellowship Manager

Colleen Schlecht, Researcher and Evaluation Coordinator

Sarah Wagener, Fellowship Network Coordinator

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Doris Duke, the only child of James Buchanan Duke, founder of the American Tobacco Company, inherited half of her father's fortune at the age of 12. She utilized her wealth to pursue her many interests; she was a committed environmentalist, appreciated diverse cultures, cherished the arts, and gave back to a number of causes as a philanthropist. In her will, she endowed the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with assets which, since 1997, have been awarded through four national grant-making programs. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, located in New York, holds at its core the mission to improve the quality of people's lives through funding projects in four areas that were important to Doris Duke: performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and child well-being. 

In terms of promoting child well-being, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has three goals: building a repertoire of prevention strategies, developing and disseminating knowledge, and expanding the capacity of existing systems that support the well-being of children. The Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child-Well-Being fall under the Foundation's mission to develop and disseminate knowledge; by supporting developing talent in the field of child well-being promotion and maltreatment prevention, the Foundation builds research and practice capacity, thus creating long-lasting change.