Fellowship Program
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Our yearly Fellowship programme is designed for academics and practitioners at all stages of their career to engage in electoral integrity research, with the support of the EIP, other fellows, and members of our Advisory Board. Junior Fellows are academics at the level of Master’s or PhD Student. Fellows are academic at the level of postdoctoral fellow, Assistant Professor, Lecturer, or the equivalent. Senior Fellows are academics at the level of Associate or Full Professor, Senior or Principal Lecturer, Reader, or the equivalent. Practitioner Fellows are practitioners in a field related to electoral integrity at any stage of their career. This may include fellows from government, non-governmental, civil society, or industry.
Applications for the 2025 EIP Fellowship Programmes are now closed.
COMPONENTS
Conduct an academic research project on a topic related to electoral integrity.
Produce a working paper and associated conference presentation for our annual workshop
Engage in monthly seminars, where fellows will present their work to receive valuable feedback and engage in stimulating discussion.
Fellows will have the option to be matched with a senior mentor from our International Advisory Board or established practitioner partners.
TYPES OF FELLOWSHIPS
Junior Fellows: Academic at the level of Master’s or Doctoral Student or Candidate. This fellowship is accompanied by a $1000 CAD payment to support their work.
Fellows: Academic at the level of postdoctoral fellows, Assistant Professor, Lecturer, or the equivalent. Postdoctoral fellows or those in non-permanent employment situations may be awarded a $1000 CAD payment to support their work if funding permits.
Senior Fellows: Academics at the level of Associate or Full Professor, Senior or Principal Lecturer, Reader, or the equivalent.
Practitioner Fellows: Practitioners in a field related to electoral integrity at any stage of their career. This may include fellows from government, non-governmental, civil society, or industry. These fellows are not eligible for funding.
IN ADDITION TO GENERAL FELLOWSHIPS, three NAMED FELLOWSHIPS ARE AVAILABLE:
William and Kathy Hybl Fellowship (International Foundation for Electoral Systems): For students or scholars from one of the following American states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah or Wyoming. This fellowship has a fixed value of $5000 USD. In collaboration with IFES (https://www.ifes.org/work-us/fellowships).
Charles and Kathleen Manatt Fellowship (International Foundation for Electoral Systems): For students or scholars from one of the following American states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota or Wisconsin. This fellowship has a fixed value of $5000 USD. In collaboration with IFES (https://www.ifes.org/work-us/fellowships).
Human-Centric Cyber-Security Fellows: For graduate students or postdoctoral fellows from any geographic region studying one of the following issues: voting technologies, exclusion and harmful speech, access for voters with disabilities, or mis- or dis-information. This fellowship has a fixed value of $2500 CAD. Up to two fellowships will be offered. In collaboration with the Human-Centric Cyber-Security Network (https://www.hc2p.ca/)
2024 Fellows
IAN REBOUÇAS BATISTA, junior Fellow
Ian Batista is a PhD Candidate at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil, studying autocratization processes and attacks on electoral cycles by democratically elected leaders. He currently also serves as a Project Assistant at The Carter Center and has experience in electoral observation and monitoring across Latin America and Tunisia.
SILENCE MARSH, JUNIOR Fellow
After completing a BA in Sociology at Hamline University, Silence went on to work as an Elections Administrator in local government for five years. Silence is a first-year PhD student at Stony Brook University interested in focusing her research on identifying how election integrity and denialism can be situated in a global context.
bekezela gumbo, fELLOW
Bekezela Gumbo is a Principal Researcher at the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute and a comparative politics lecturer at Africa University. He holds a PhD in Africa Studies from the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa, where he conducted a mixed-methods comparative study of how democratic institutional reforms affect political stability, socio-economic and human development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
kelci burckhardt, ifes hybl fellow
Kelci is a PhD candidate at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her current academic research focuses on democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, examining how the negotiation process between opposition groups and incumbent regimes impacts democratic transition and resilience.
MANU SINGH, JUNIOR FELLOW
Manu Singh is a Political Science Ph.D. student at Columbia University with a focus on political communication and social media, utilizing quantitative methods. She has a strong interest in the intersection of technology and politics and has researched topics such as political bots and identity politics.
richard kweitsu, Junior Fellow
Richard is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. Richard also currently serves as the Managing Editor for African Studies Quarterly. Richard holds a Master's degree in International Development (with a specialization in Governance and State Building) from the University of Birmingham.
THOMAS MUSTILLO, IFES MANATT Fellow
Thomas Mustillo is an associate professor of politics at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, where he serves as the director of the undergraduate Minor in Data Science and the professional Master of Global Affairs concentration in governance & policy. He received a PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and studies democracy, representation, and parties (especially in Latin America). He is especially interested in understanding highly unstable electoral contexts, such as Ecuador where he has conducted extensive field research.
WOUTER WOLFS, Senior Fellow
Wouter Wolfs is Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Public Governance Institute of the University of Leuven (Belgium). He has been a Guest Lecturer and Visiting Fellow at the University of Antwerp, University of Maastricht, the Party Research Institute of the University of Düsseldorf and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. His research is focused on political finance and integrity, electoral systems, the organization and campaign behavior of political parties, and legislative studies. In 2022, he published the book “European Political Parties and Party Finance Reform: Funding Democracy?”.
PAOLO SOSA-VILLAGARCIA, hc2p fellow
Paolo Sosa-Villagarcia is currently a researcher at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP). He is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia and holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences with a major in Political Science and Government from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He has been a Fox International Fellow at Yale University and country coordinator for Peru at the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem).
ingo boltz, Practitioner Fellow
Ingo has worked on the issues of electronic voting and biometric voter registration systems since 2006. He has been a core team member of international electoral observation missions and technical assistance projects of organizations such as the Carter Center, the OAS, UNDP, OSCE/ODIHR and DI. He has been a speaker at conferences, writes occasionally, and is a member of the Election Verification Network (EVN). His current focus is on Generative Artificial Intelligence in the context of political misinformation and election campaigns. He is helping The Carter Center design a program around these issues.