Medical Humanities Fellows/Stanford Humanities Center

The Stanford Humanities Center is excited to announce a new opportunity for Stanford Medicine physicians interested in pursuing nonfiction scholarly work in Medical Humanities: a fellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center.

Deadline to Apply: July 31, 2025

This is a one-year pilot for a short-term residential program housed at the Humanities Center, Stanford’s center for advanced research in the humanities. During their fellowship, Medical Humanities fellows will have a dedicated office at the Center, located on the historic campus, and be immersed in the Center’s interdisciplinary community of scholars. They will be expected to present to and engage with the yearlong Humanities Center fellows (an interdisciplinary cohort of external and Stanford faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows), and to commit to two lunches a week. Fellowships will be for a two-month period, with one Medical Humanities fellow in residence per academic quarter (Fall/Winter/Spring).

Since its founding in 1980, the Stanford Humanities Center has sponsored advanced research into the historical, philosophical, literary, artistic, and cultural dimensions of the human experience. It is an independent research center reporting to the Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. The Center’s annual fellows, international visitors, research workshops, and annual public events strengthen the intellectual and creative life of the university and foster innovative and interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching, including research in medical humanities. The internationally renowned Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), recently restructured to become part of the Humanities Center, embraces emerging digital methodologies and tools to complement existing traditional research methods of analysis and interpretation.

Eligibility

Stanford medical faculty (UML) and clinician educators (CE) are eligible to apply, especially if they have access to sabbatical time (UML) or professional development leave (PDL). Especially appropriate for this fellowship are candidates who are developing or finishing a nonfiction project that could benefit from humanistic collaboration. Fellows are expected to be excused from research and clinical duties for at least 80 percent of the time during the duration of the fellowship term. To qualify, fellows must provide documentation from their Division Chief or Department Chair attesting coverage of the Center’s fees ($6,000) associated with the position.

Apply

Please submit the materials listed below to Svetlana Turetskaya, sturetsk@stanford.edu, Humanities Center program manager, no later than July 31, 2025, for consideration for AY 2025–26. Applications will be reviewed by a committee of Humanities Center directors/staff and medical humanities faculty, with decisions announced by August 15, 2025. 

• Curriculum vitae of no more than 10 pages
• Research statement—brief description (500 words) of the writing/research project to be pursued during the fellowship. Please explain the objectives, significance, methodology, and originality of the project in a manner clear to an interdisciplinary audience of academics within and outside the medical humanities. Please also indicate your preferred quarter (if any) for fellowship leave (Fall, Winter, or Spring)
• Confirmation of Leave and Financial Support from division chief/department chair (please download the form, complete it, and send it to Svetlana Turetskaya, sturetsk@stanford.edu)
• One recommendation letter (recommended but not required)

Contact 

For additional questions and/or to apply please contact Svetlana Turetskaya, sturetsk@stanford.edu.