GMAF
The Global MIT At-Risk Fellows (GMAF) Program is designed to enhance the educational and research experiences of Ukrainian university faculty and researchers by introducing them to MIT campus methods and strategies in their areas of specialty. This pilot program focuses on Ukrainian scholars with current or recent affiliations at Ukrainian universities or the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The applicants may currently be residing in Ukraine (with eligibility to leave the country) or be living outside the country since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The application process for the Spring 2025 semester is now closed.
Fellowship
Fellows selected by the GMAF faculty committee will spend a semester at MIT. Each fellow will be paired with an MIT faculty advisor in their field and have an opportunity observe research work and classes taught by their advisor or another MIT faculty member. Fellows will also be invited to attend lab meetings and on-campus programming that may be of interest to them in their area of specialty and beyond. MIT covers expenses associated with the GMAF fellowship, including travel, accommodations, visas, health insurance, instructional materials, as well as a general living stipend.
GMAF welcomes applications from all qualified faculty and researchers who are:
- Holders of academic or research appointments (or had been prior to February 2022) at a Ukrainian university or the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences
- Interested in and committed to bringing their scholarship to bear on Ukraine’s current challenges
- Holders of a PhD (or equivalent degree) in a field that is also represented at MIT
- Ukrainian citizens
GMAF will give priority to applicants from the following fields, which are relevant for Ukraine’s pressing needs and have strong representation within MIT:
- Economic development
- Housing and urban planning
- Energy, advanced materials, and infrastructure (especially nuclear and sustainable forms of energy)
- Computer science (especially in the areas of digital transformation, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence)
- Prosthetics engineering
- Logistics
Application is not limited to these fields, and scholars from other fields are also welcome to apply, so long as their fields are represented at MIT.
All applications must be written by the candidates themselves. No applications from ChatGPT or other artificial machine learning source will be acceptable. Semi-finalists will also be requested to upload a 1-minute video explaining their research and teaching interests. At the final stage, the GMAF faculty committee will hold half-hour interviews with the finalist candidates.
The application process for AY2024-2025 is now closed.
News
We are excited to welcome our next GMAF, Nataliia Fihurka, to spend the fall 2024 semester on MIT campus. Dr. Fihurka attained her PhD in Polymer Chemistry at the Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine. Currently, her research focuses on synthetic and natural hydrogels for various applications, and on synthesis of functionalized polymers and nanoparticles.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, aside from conducting their regular research, Dr. Fihurka and her colleagues from the Lviv Polytech have also been involved in the production of industrial batches of hydrogel dressings for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Dr. Fihurka's team has launched a pilot plant to evaluate technology designed by their research in January 2022. However, since March 2022 the plant’s production line has been working exclusively to supply military and civilians with hydrogel products for treating acute burns and other types of wounds at different stages of therapy. With the help of volunteer students as well as charitable organizations covering the cost of raw materials, Dr. Fihurka’s team has been able to send more than 200,000 medical products to military and civilian hospitals, as well as directly to military brigades to supplement soldiers’ first aid kits.
