LSA member Patricia L. Irwin, a linguist who recently completed her PhD at New York University, has been awarded a New Faculty Fellowship in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. The award, given as part of the ACLS New Faculty Fellows Program 2013, includes an appointment at Penn for the academic years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. Dr. Irwin is among 22 awardees selected by the American Council of Learned Societies, of which the LSA is a longtime member.

The fellowship award is offered to recent Ph.D.s from a range of humanistic disciplines, who will take up two-year positions at participating universities across the country. Made possible by a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New Faculty Fellows program has fostered the careers of nearly 170 humanities Ph.D.s since its inception in 2009. In this year’s competition, 46 universities nominated over 500 of their most qualified recent Ph.D.s in the humanities. The dossier of each nominated candidate underwent a rigorous two-stage peer-review process, resulting in a highly competitive group of finalists. Each participating university then made offers of two-year posts to finalists whose subject-matter expertise met the institution’s specific curricular needs. Besides a stipend and research allowance, each fellow receives a faculty mentor at the host university that supports the fellow’s integration into the academic community.

“The ACLS New Faculty Fellows program provided a life-line to a career in academia for many newly-minted humanities Ph.D.s who were unduly affected by the dearth of positions in the wake of the economic downturn,” said Nicole Stahlmann, Director of Fellowship Programs at the American Council of Learned Societies. “Although it is still early to gauge fully the effects of the entire program, we are very pleased that of the first two cohorts, 44 fellows were able to succeed to tenure-track positions after their fellowships; 18 at their host institution and 26 at other institutions. Now that the program has reached its conclusion, I would like to thank the Mellon Foundation and all participating institutions for their efforts to promote a new generation of talented humanities scholars.” See the full list of 2013 New Faculty Fellows and appointments here.