AIA Olivia James fellowship offers US scholars up to $25,000 for study in Cyprus and Greece

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is taking applications until 1 November 2026 for its Olivia James Traveling Fellowship, an award of up to $25,000. It is open only to United States citizens, and only to those who are current AIA members at the Graduate or Professional level. Doctoral students working on a dissertation and scholars within five years of their PhD at the deadline are preferred, and the holder may not take up another major fellowship during the award.

The money pays for travel and study between 1 May of the award year and 30 September of the next, with preference for projects of six months or more. Cyprus is one of the named regions, alongside Greece, the Aegean islands, Sicily, five provinces of southern Italy, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and most of the proposed travel must fall inside them. The fellowship does not fund excavation, and none of it may go on institutional overheads. Holders report afterwards on how the money was spent and, within two years, submit an abstract for consideration at the AIA Annual Meeting.

Work on Cypriot material has won it before. In 2019 it went to Cassandra Donnelly, then a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, to study potmarks on excavated material from Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Greece for a dissertation on Late Bronze Age writing, including Cypro-Minoan.

Everything, references and transcripts included, has to reach the AIA by 1 November; the application form and guidelines are linked from the fellowship page. The AIA names its fellows by 1 March, and the fellowship coordinator answers questions at fellowships@archaeological.org.