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Contact the Team

Make an Appointment

The Office of Grants and Fellowships offers a wide range of services to support current Notre Dame graduate students and postdocs as they prepare and apply for external funding. We offer individual consultations, in-depth draft reviews, and advice for crafting individual comprehensive funding development plans. Other services include proposal workshops, department-specific programming and events, and informational and peer-review sessions. Notre Dame graduate students also gain access to our large collection of successful sample proposals through contact with our office. The regular office hours are Monday – Friday, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm.

In order to ensure that we are able to effectively assist all graduate students, the following policies regulate the use of our services: 

  1. All students are encouraged to utilize our services as they need. In the interest of keeping our services accessible, please schedule no more than one consultation every two business days. Under certain circumstances, additional consultations may be scheduled at the discretion of the Office of Grants and Fellowships.
  2. To ensure that our consultants are adequately prepared to assist you, appointments scheduled within 24 hours are subject to cancelation.
  3. In order to enable our consultants to provide the best quality support, any draft materials you wish to have reviewed should be submitted 24 hours prior to scheduled consultations.
  4. Individual consultants may have additional policies listed on their appointment page regarding booking, cancelation, and timeline for draft reviews. 
  5. Appointments must be booked using your ND email address.
  6. The office reserves the right to cancel or limit services as necessary depending upon the availability of our consultation team.

By adhering to these policies, we aim to provide high-quality, effective, and accessible support for all Notre Dame graduate students. If you want to book a consultation, have any questions about these policies, or need assistance, please contact gradgrants@nd.edu.

Our History

In 2011, the Graduate School formed the Office of Grants and Fellowships, a dedicated office open exclusively to graduate students with the goals of enhancing student experience relative to scholarly research and merit-based grants and fellowships. Consultations with our office led to our graduate students receiving more than $6.47 million dollars in external funding in AY 2021–2022, and we were named a top producer for the ninth consecutive year in AY 2022–2023 for the number of Fulbright fellowships received.

Our Team

Our mission is to foster Notre Dame student success: helping our students to develop transferable skills, to craft a compelling narrative, and to share their research.  We assist Notre Dame graduate students in applying and winning prestigious external fellowships and grants using a peer-mentor model comprised of our multidisciplinary fellowship advising team. Our consultants are current Notre Dame graduate students and alumni who are experienced, successful grant and fellowship writers. Our consultants will work with you one-on-one to provide constructive feedback on applications. We offer flexibility in scheduling our consultation meetings, both in-person and online. We can also help you identify potential funding, generate a funding development plan throughout your graduate studies, and produce competitive external funding applications.

Start with Canvas

Our in-person and digital consultations are designed to accompany the Canvas self-directed tutorials. The tutorials provide specific, step-by-step instructions for grant application and grant writing. Once you have reviewed the relevant tutorials, email us at gradgrants@nd.edu to schedule an appointment. In your email, be sure to articulate your goals for the consultation.

Graduate School Staff

  • Kayla Hurd

    Kayla Hurd, Ph.D.

    Assistant Program Director, Office of Grants and Fellowships

    Kayla Hurd

    Kayla Hurd, Ph.D.

    Assistant Program Director, Office of Grants and Fellowships

    (574) 631-2443
    khurd@nd.edu

    • Manages the Office of Grants and Fellowships
    • Guide Students in Identifying and Obtaining Successful Extramural Funding
    • Proposal Writing and Development
    • Data Collection and Management 

    Kayla Hurd, Ph.D. is an assistant director at the Graduate School's Office of Grants and Fellowships at the University of Notre Dame. Kayla earned her doctorate from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame in 2023. As a biocultural anthropologist, her research focused on the embodiment of people's meaning making and dietary practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more broadly, she studied concepts of edibility through mixed method approaches of food and nutrition in Mexico. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Explorer's Club, the Eck Institute for Global Health, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts. She has been with the team since 2018 as the sole social scientist and has been the Fulbright Program Advisor since 2021. Kayla is available to review all internal and external grants and fellowships, including those in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM. 

  • Michael Skalski

    Michael Skalski, Ph.D.

    Assistant Program Director, Office of Grants and Fellowships

    Michael Skalski

    Michael Skalski, Ph.D.

    Assistant Program Director, Office of Grants and Fellowships

    (574) 631-1713
    mskalski@nd.edu

    • Manages the Office of Grants and Fellowships
    • Guide Students in Identifying and Obtaining Successful Extramural Funding
    • Proposal Writing and Development
    • Data Collection and Management 

    Michael Skalski, Ph.D. is an assistant program director at the Graduate School’s Office of Grants and Fellowships at the University of Notre Dame. Michael offers help in grantsmanship, manages several prestigious fellowship competitions such as the Fulbright-Hays DDRA, and ensures that services provided by the office reflect the priorities of Notre Dame graduate students. Michael has experience with generating successful merit-based grant and fellowship applications. With background in history, international affairs, and foreign languages, he has worked as a researcher, instructor, and freelancer in academic publishing.

Graduate Student Consultants