~2 hours a month. Fully remote. Real impact.
The IYEC Fellowship pairs IYEC finalists with research mentors. We welcome faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, NGO scientists, and industry researchers who are interested in supporting the next generation of environmental scientists.
Built for busy researchers: clear scope, focused meetings, no surprise demands.
Weekly video calls with your mentee. Review progress, unblock questions, sanity-check methodology.
Most mentors take one fellow. Take a second only if you have real capacity.
You gate the final deliverable in November. That's it — no grading, no reports, no admin.
All 38 finalist projects are tagged by research area. Match your expertise to a category — we'll handle the matching from there.
Atmospheric science, climate modeling, air quality, urban heat, carbon tracking.
Waste systems, recycling, materials reuse, lifecycle analysis, sustainable design.
Watershed health, coastal ecosystems, drinking-water access, aquatic biology.
Sustainable agriculture, soil health, food security, regenerative practices.
Environmental education design, behavior change, policy, community organizing.
Renewable energy, efficiency, energy access, grid resilience, low-carbon tech.
Our most effective mentors are often PhD students and early-career researchers, not full faculty. Match by expertise, not by title.
Especially welcome if you've supervised undergrads or high-school researchers before.
Our largest mentor pool. Strong methods training, accessible to fellows, peer-like.
Conservation, environmental justice, climate orgs. You bring real-world deployment experience.
Cleantech, environmental consulting, biotech, materials. Industry mentors raise project rigor.
Especially valuable for the Education & Advocacy track. Public-sector expertise matters.
If you have a research-grade portfolio — peer-reviewed publications, deployed work, advanced degree — you qualify.
Our fellows are pre-selected by competition. They've shown follow-through. You're mentoring serious projects, not pity assignments.
Many mentor-fellow pairs co-author the final report or paper. Counts toward your scholarly record.
Public listing on the IYEC mentor page (opt-in), inclusion in our annual impact report, and an institutional acknowledgment letter.
Use the mentorship in your tenure file, NSF Broader Impacts, university service portfolio, or company CSR record.
Cross-paths with other mentors across 6 disciplines and dozens of institutions. Informal cohort calls twice a year.
Faculty mentors get early visibility into top young researchers — many fellows go on to apply to your programs.
~8-minute form. Tell us your areas, capacity, and time zone.
We schedule a quick call to clarify fit and answer your questions.
Late May 2026. You'll see your fellow's proposal before confirming.
Orientation, intro meeting with your fellow, and we run cover from there.
Eight-minute form. We'll follow up with a 20-minute intro call before any commitment.
Start mentor sign-up