George Burch Fellowship in Theoretical Medicine and Affiliated Theoretical Science

Is currently on hold.

The purpose of the George E. Burch Fellowship is to support a distinguished scholar in residence at the Smithsonian. The fellow may work in any discipline, but the creative effort should, in accordance with the wishes of the donor, be related to human medicine. Dr. Burch’s goal is to permit the fellowship recipient time to think with freedom and creativity, and thereby stimulate new medically related theories in his or her discipline.

Dr. George E. Burch Jr., was an award-winning cardiologist who established this fellowship through his generosity in the hope that it would “provide the means for future significant discovery and advances in knowledge.”

As he described in his 1976 American Heart Journaleditorial “Of Venture Research,” Dr. Burch expressed the need for individuals to “research in the search of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.” He wholeheartedly believed in order to achieve revolutionary discoveries and studies, researchers must be distant from pressures of grant councils and publication demands. Dr. Burch supported the idea of providing researchers with grants “to do whatever research they want—alone free from frustration, to think, to delve into the unknown, to satisfy their curiosity.”

The George E. Burch Fellowship Program supports independent post-doctoral research related to Smithsonian collections, facilities, or experts in the fields of medicine, biology, chemistry, the social sciences, and the humanities as they apply to human health and medicine.

  • Eligibility: The fellowship is eligible for post-doctoral scholars, whose research interests lie within medicine, biology, physics, chemistry, and fields in the social science and humanities, as it applies to human health and medicine. 
  • Term: Up to 24 months
  • Stipend: $60,000 per year for up to two years (prorated for shorter periods of time).
                    $4,000 per year in research allowances and possible travel relocation.
  • Deadline: November 1, 2020 11:59 pm EST
Program Guidelines
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