Draper Fellow Program
Fellow Program

Outstanding Opportunities for Exceptional Students

Since 1973, the Draper Fellow Program has supported over 1,000 graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in engineering and the sciences. Draper Fellow Alumni are from both civilian and military backgrounds and excel worldwide in the technical, corporate, government, academic and entrepreneurship sectors.

In the 2019/20 academic year, Draper is supporting 65 Fellows at 9 universities in the Draper Fellow Program and two graduate students in the Hertz-Draper Fellow Program. Twenty-one Draper Fellows graduated in 2019.

 

Fellows 2017-2018

The Fellowship Experience

The Draper Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for students to benefit from not only immersion in their university's academic research environment, but also from Draper's facilities, collective knowledge and experience. Draper Fellows work closely with Draper technical staff to develop state-of-the-art technologies in world-class laboratories, and their scholarly outputs often go beyond top-tier journal papers and conference presentations to include prototypes, testbeds and field implementations. Each Draper Fellow conducts his/her research under the supervision of both a University faculty advisor and a Draper supervisor who is a member of Draper’s technical staff in an area of mutual interest.

The Draper Fellow Program provides structured additional professional development opportunities for students to complement and supplement their research experiences. Additionally, Fellows have the opportunity to be paired with a mentor drawn from Program alumni to leverage the Draper Fellow network across space and time.

Quick facts:

  • Draper Fellowships support M.S. and Ph.D. study in technical areas of interest to Draper, in engineering and the sciences. All Draper Fellows must complete a thesis.
  • Support includes tuition and stipend; tuition is at a rate agreed to by Draper and the university while stipend is at the university's set rate.
  • Draper expects to support a Fellow for the time required to complete his/her degree. Fellowships are renewable annually following a successful yearly review by a faculty advisor and Draper supervisor indicating progress toward the degree.
  • Students must be accepted to and matriculate at a participating university, given below.
  • Technical areas of interest to Draper include but are not limited to our capability areas, as given at draper.com/core-capabilities.
  • Students may be at any point in their graduate degree programs; the Fellowship is not limited to students at the beginning of their graduate study.
  • Active duty military personnel pursuing graduate study may work on classified projects.
  • The program is open to U.S. citizens only.

Participating universities:

  • Boston University
  • Brown University
  • Harvard University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Northeastern University
  • Purdue University
  • Rice University
  • Tufts University
  • University of Colorado, Boulder
  • University of Massachusetts, Lowell
  • University of South Florida

Department/degree programs:

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering
  • Computer Science
  • Electrical Engineering/Electrical & Computer Engineering/EECS
  • Health, Science, and Technology (Harvard/MIT Joint Program)
  • Materials Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Nuclear Engineering
  • Operations Research
  • Physics
  • Technology and Policy
  • Other programs may also be included

 

Applications to the Draper Fellow Program are no longer being received for AY2021-2022.

The Draper Fellow Program application period for AY2021-2022 is closed.  The application for AY2022-2023 will open in mid to late October 2021.