Early Career Work and Family Fellowship Program
The Work and Family Researchers Network is committed to mentoring the next generation of work and family scholars. Our Early Career Fellowship Program provides support for recent doctoral recipients to advance their research, teaching, and long-term career prospects. By offering networked resources and consultation, we help promising new scholars move into tenure-track, tenured appointments and secure senior-level positions, as well as engage them with the work and family community of scholars.
Call for Applications
The Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN) is seeking applicants for its 2026-2027 Early Career Work and Family Fellowships. The goal of the program is to help promising young scholars establish career successes and integrate them within the WFRN research community. Fellows receive a 2026 membership in the WFRN, conference registration, and $250 to attend an Early Career Fellowship Preconference (June 17, 2026) and the 2026 WFRN Conference (June 18-20, 2026) in Montreal, Canada. To be eligible, candidates must have received their doctorate in 2023 or later and have yet to progress into tenured or secure senior-level positions. Applications can be submitted via this link. The deadline for applications is October 1, 2025. Questions about the program can be addressed to the program co-directors, Nicole Denier (ngdenier@gmail.com) and Yang Hu (prof.yanghu@gmail.com).
Submit Your Application
The application deadline is October 1, 2025. Applications for the 2026 cohort are now closed.
Application Preparation Guidance
Applicants are advised to illuminate specific circumstances that relate to the impact that participation in the Early Career Fellowship program might have on their own careers. In your application, you will be asked to report information on your doctoral work, current employment, reasons for applying to the program, likelihood of attending the 2026 WFRN conference (June 18–20, 2026) and ECF preconference (June 17, 2026), interest in working collaboratively with other fellowship recipients, research interests and teaching interests.
History of the Early Career Fellowship Program
In 2005, the directors of the Sloan Centers on Working Families discussed the challenges that their doctoral students experience as they transition from their Ph.D. granting institutions into their entry level jobs (most commonly as assistant professors). Their concern was that their former students reported feeling isolated and missed the support that was extended through the Sloan Centers. In identifying this concern, the center directors considered strategies for extending support to their graduates to maximize the career prospects of the next generation of work-family scholars, and thereby help secure the future of work and family scholarship.
In response, the Sloan Foundation funded an initiative called The Early Career Work and Family Scholars Program to identify promising academics who had recently received their doctorates and to integrate them into a wider community of work and family scholars. The WFRN has provided support to 140 newer Ph.D. recipients, many of whom have now moved on from their “early career” stage to become recognized leaders in the work and family community. Participants in the current and previous cohorts are listed below
The goal of the program is to help promising young scholars establish career successes, integrate them within the WFRN research community, and guide translation of their research to inform the work of decision-makers. Fellows receive membership in the WFRN, conference registration, and financial support to attend an Early Career Fellowship Preconference and the WFRN Conference. To be eligible, candidates must have recently received their doctorate and have yet to progress into tenured or secure senior level positions.
Selection Procedures
The Early Career Fellowship Program Directors will compose a committee of 3-4 members. Selection procedures include consideration of diversities, potential impact of the program on the recipient’s career, and recipient interests in different elements of the program, and cohort cohesion.
Early Career Fellowship Cohorts
Early Career Fellows 2026-27
- Layne Amerikaner, AARP, USA
- Kristen Burke, University of Central Florida, USA
- Sam Castonguay, Michigan State University, USA
- Taylor Cavallo, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA
- Herbary Cheung, Monash University, Australia
- Lauren Clingan, Sciences Po, France
- Allison Dunatchik, University of South Carolina, USA
- Lyn Hoang, Western University, Canada
- Jaime Hsu, University of Texas at Austin, USA
- Fei Huang, University College London, UK
- Winnie Lam, University of Leeds, UK
- Olga Leshchenko, Vienna Institute of Demography, Austria
- Meiying Li, Cornell University, USA
- Grisel Lopez-Alvarez, North Central College, USA
- Holly Mathias, University of Alberta, Canada
- Pfarelo Matsila, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Kimberly McErlean, European University Institute, Italy
- Julia Melin, Dartmouth College, USA
- Rhiannon Miller, Providence College, USA
- Nelly Nwachukwu-Ofoegbu, Nottingham Trent University, UK
- Shawn Xiaoshi Quan, University of New Mexico, USA
- Vincent Jerald Ramos, University of Southampton, UK
- Ana Carolina Rodriguez, University of Minnesota, USA
- Rahat Shah, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
- Yongxin Shang, Yale University, USA
- Luis Tenorio, Colby College, USA
- Gabriela Trombeta, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil
- Anna Wozny, Princeton University, USA
- Chih-lan Winnie Yang, University of Alberta, Canada
- Yan Zhang, University of Southampton, UK