Scholarship Opportunities

Assistantships (Masters students) and Associateships (Doctoral students) are awarded through contracts for the Academic Year (AY = fall and spring) or Semester (fall or spring) and must be renewed annually. Refer to the terms of the original Letter of Offer or your major's degree program handbook. The current Academic Year (major semester) salaries and the summer hourly student wages are provided at the link here.

Individual faculty members and research scientists affiliated with the department provide these opportunities; the department administration does not have employment opportunities to support student stipends/salaries. The official Letter of Offer outlines the terms and the period covered by the award, Academic Year or specific Semester.

If you want to be hired (new hire or re-hire) as a Graduate Assistant in Teaching or Research, you must apply annually. Positions are not automatically renewed. To be eligible, you must be in Good Academic Standing and making satisfactory academic progress, i.e. official forms up-to-date and making good progress in course work and research effort (if applicable). See your current faculty advisor or supervisor regarding new or continued funding requests. All positions are part-time hires indicated by the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) of a standard 40-hour work week. Students are not permitted to work full-time during the Academic Year (fall and spring semesters).

• In most (but not all) cases, students hired at 0.25 FTE or 0.33 FTE* (quarter-time and third-time positions) receive the following:
  • Salary-stipend (see here for current AY salaries-hourly summer wage rates)
  • Full individual student health insurance coverage for the period of hire (full 12 months if hired fall and spring)
  • Tuition scholarship covering 50% of the resident tuition fee
  • Non-Arizona Residents: The Graduate College also provides a full waiver of the non-resident tuition fee
  • Not covered: Mandatory Miscellaneous Fees, Special Course Fees, and similar Bursar fees
  • Refer to the Notice of Appointment contract for full details
  • Sponsored Students: Some Sponsors provide partial or full coverage of resident and non-resident fees (sponsor payments are always applied first)
• In most (but not all) cases, students hired at 0.50 FTE* (half-time positions) receive the following:
  • Salary-stipend (see here for current AY salaries-hourly summer wage rates)
  • Full individual student health insurance coverage for the period of hire (12 months if hired fall and spring)
  • Tuition scholarship covering 100% of the resident tuition fee
  • Non-Arizona Residents: The Graduate College also provides a full waiver of the non-resident tuition fee
  • Not covered: Mandatory Miscellaneous Fees, Special Course Fees, and similar Bursar fees
  • Refer to the Notice of Appointment contract document for full hiring details
  • Sponsored Students: Some Sponsors provide partial or full coverage of resident and non-resident fees (sponsor payments are always applied first)

*FTE = Percentage hire based on a Full Time Equivalent salary. The Full Time Equivalent salary may vary depending on degree program (MS vs. PHD), duties (teaching or research), or length of time in program (new vs. continuing--Pre-Comprehensive Exam or near completion--Post-Comprehensive Exam).

Through funding provided annually by the Graduate College and administered through the College of Science, the department provides partial tuition scholarships (typical range $1000-2500) and partial fellowship awards (typical range $500-$1000) for eligible students (official majors) currently enrolled in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences. The minimum award is typically valued at $500; no specific amounts are guaranteed from semester to semester or year to year.

DEADLINE: Tuition scholarship and fellowship award application deadline is generally late summer (date to be announced) for the forthcoming academic year for awards that must be posted before the first day of classes for Fall Semester. If additional funds are available for the Spring Semester, a second call for applications will occur near the end of the Fall Semester.

PERIOD OF AWARD: Tuition scholarships may only be applied to a student's Bursar account during the major semesters of Fall and Spring. Awards cannot be made for Summer Session (mid-May through mid-August) or Winter Session (mid-December through mid-January).

APPLICATION: The department's graduate program coordinator will notify students if and when funds become available and will extend a call for applications. This is an internal departmental process. Applications are not submitted through Scholarship Universe. It is important to note:

• The department does not have funding to provide a full fellowship/stipend to cover the cost of living or a full 100% tuition scholarship to cover both the resident and non-resident fees.
• Please do not request a full maximum-value award (e.g. $15,000 for both resident and non-resident tuition fees), or you increase your risk of receiving no award.
• If you will receive financial aid through the Office of Student Financial Aid (e.g. subsidized loans), please provide information on the form when describing all sources of funding.

HOW THEY WORK: Tuition scholarships will be applied only to 1) resident (in-state) or 2) non-resident (out-of-state) fees on the student's Bursar account. Fellowship funds may be used to pay mandatory miscellaneous fees, a student health insurance premium, special course fees for lab or field courses, or similar charges on the student's bursar account. Students may also request fellowship funds for attending conferences (e.g., costs associated with travel, conference registration, approved per diem expenses).

History: The Kirk Scholarship was established in 2022 to support the department's efforts to increase diversity among undergraduates majoring in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (HAS). This scholarship, valued at $1,000 annually, is made possible by generous donations from University of Arizona alumni Daniel P. Kirk (BA 2013, Music) and Alyssa G. Kirk (BS 2014, MS 2020, HAS) and gifts from friends, family, and the community. Award Period: 2022-2026.

Eligibility and Selection: An applicant must be a full-time undergraduate student majoring in HAS with a minimum 2.75 or greater cumulative GPA. Students will be nominated by a faculty or staff member based on the student's ability to broaden perspectives and scientific approaches as demonstrated by the student's diverse life experiences (e.g., economic, educational, cultural, geographic, and/or familial background). A scholarship review committee comprised of HAS faculty and staff appointed by the Department Head will review and select recipients. The committee will evaluate each applicant based on the eligibility criteria. The number and amount of each award will be determined by the availability of funding. Scholarship recipients are eligible for renewal consideration if recipients continue to meet the eligibility criteria.

Brief Description The Errol L. Montgomery & Associates, Inc. Scholarship was established in 2021 by M&A founder, Errol L. Montgomery, and donors from Montgomery & Associates, Inc. to support undergraduate and graduate students majoring in Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (HAS) and in Geosciences (GEOS) with demonstrated interests in groundwater...more details

This endowed scholarship is to support undergraduate students in good academic standing within the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences who have financial need.

History: This endowed scholarship fund was established by the estate of Donald Ross Davis to reflect Don's nearly 40 years of service to the students in the Hydrology and Water Resources Department at the University of Arizona.  Don obtained his PhD in Systems Engineering in 1969.  He was hired as an assistant professor in Hydrology one year later. Don's research career focused on the use of Bayesian techniques to best reflect our state of knowledge about hydrological processes in surface and subsurface hydrology.  In his teaching generations of graduate and undergraduate alumni of the department have Don to thank for a deep sense of the meaning of a "random variable" and how that influences the questions we can answer in hydrologic science and application.  Don's research career in his later years mostly focused on helping graduate students with the use of statistical methods in their research.  This bequest of Don's was made possible by Don's scrupulous frugality -- for example, he lived in the same studio apartment for 40 years raising his own rent payments whenever he received a raise from the University.  Don never owned a house as doing so would be too risky since a house only exists in one place and instead he invested his surplus income in a diversified range of stocks and bond through an investment club he participated in.  Beyond hydrology, Don loved trains, playing bridge, sailing and doting on his nieces and nephews

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The Stan Davis Endowment was recently established by Phil Fitzwater, alumnus of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (HAS), to support graduate student scholarships. Named in memory of Dr. Stanley N. Davis, who positively impacted Phil and many others during his tenure as a professor, the scholarship enables the department to recruit and retain the best and brightest students. (At the time of his donation, Fitzwater issued a match challenge to potential donors: If $20,000 could be raised, he would donate an additional $5,000.)

Davis Biography: Dr. Stanley N. Davis was a professor and former head of the department of hydrology and water resources. Davis earned a bachelor's degree in geology with a minor in mathematics from the University of Nevada in 1949, a Master of Science degree in geology from the University of Kansas in 1951 and his doctorate in geology from Yale University in 1955. He joined the University of Arizona faculty in 1975. During his career, Davis was a consultant for the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the Kansas and Missouri geological surveys, the Arctic Institute of North America, Princeton University, and the University Oriente and the University de los Andes, both in Venezuela.

“Stan Davis was an inspired teacher and mentor. Never too harsh, never too weak, always just right. I owe him an everlasting thanks for a good start on a long and successful career, but most of all for the guidance and outstanding example of excellence that he provided all those around him. It is an honor to offer up a scholarship fund in his name and memory. Please dig deep and support future students with a donation of consequence. Your money will be well spent in making future fine scientists aspiring to the caliber of Dr. Stan Davis.” - Phillip Fitzwater, Class of 1981, Groundwater Hydrology MS

This scholarship provides an exciting opportunity for HAS students to experience a high quality education and develop their professional careers which will impact our field and our world.

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Krider Endowed Scholarship in Atmospheric Sciences/Physics

The Krider Endowed Scholarship in Atmospheric Sciences/Physics shall be awarded to UA students who are full-time undergraduate physics majors with a minimum GP A in physics of 3 .3 and have a demonstrated interest in applied or experimental physics, or physical meteorology, or have been accepted into the Atmospheric Sciences Accelerated Master's program. Graduate students with an interest in physical meteorology may also be considered.

History:  Dr. E. Philip Krider's pioneering research on lightning and atmospheric electricity has earned him national and international prominence. He was a Professor and former Head/Director of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences/Institute of Atmospheric Physcis at the University of Arizona (UArizona). He is also an alumnus of the UArizona where he received a Master of Science degree in Physics in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1969. He is the author or co-author of more than 140 scientific publications, and he holds eight patents. Dr. Krider is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS), and, in 1985, he received the AMS Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advance of Applied Meteorology. Dr. Krider is a former Co-Chief Editor and Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences; Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research; and he is past President of the IUGG/IAMAS International Commission on Atmospheric Electricity. In 2008 he received the Blitzer Award for "Excellence in Teaching of Physics and Related Sciences" from the University of Arizona Department of Physics, and, in 2009, he was named a UArizona College of Science Galileo Circle Fellow. Dr. Krider led the team that developed the lightning sensing technique that is now being used in the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network and by similar networks in more than 40 foreign countries. He conducted research at the NASA Kennedy Space Center for many years and has chaired the NASA/Air Force/FAA advisory panel that ensures lightnigh safety during spaceflight operations. In 1976, Dr. Krider co-founded a successful Tucson company, Lightning Location and Protection, Inc. (now a division of Vaisala), and he is a noted historian of 18th century science. Dr. Krider established the Krider Endowed Scholarship in Atmospheric Sciences/Physics in 2012 in memory of his father, Edmund Authur Krider; his mother, Ruth Abbott Krider; and his brother, William Arthur Krider.

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The Sol Resnick Scholarship was created to support graduate research programs in the Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences for graduate students. The fund was established to support the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences in the College of Science at the University of Arizona. According to the non-binding request of Dr. Sol Resnick, the department will show a preference for providing financial aid to deserving Israeli graduate students. If the preference for award to an Israeli graduate is not possible due to a lack of applicants, awarding the scholarship to a student interested in the application of hydrologic science to  practical water resources problems is acceptable.

History: Sol D. Resnick was a Professor in the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources from its inception until his retirement in 1984; he was also the director of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) for nearly 20 years. He specialized in the areas of water resources conservation, augmentation, and management in arid and semi-arid areas, and worked to develop village irrigation projects in India, Brazil, Thailand, and Israel for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), World Bank, and other agencies. Resnick’s career in water resources began in the early 1940s with the Tennessee Valley Authority. In the late 1940s he taught hydrology at Colorado A & M (now Colorado State University).

From 1952 to 1957, he worked for USAID in India, later chronicling his experiences, “the best five years of my life,” in Irrigating India, a book coauthored with his wife, Elaine. He arrived at the UA in 1957. Resnick was honored several times in recent years, receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1993, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arizona Hydrological Society in 1998, and in 2003 he was feted at the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center ceremony which dedicated the WRRC Conference Room in his name. At the ceremony, colleagues and former students praised Resnick for both his sensible, practical approaches to hydrology problems worldwide and his human qualities of sensitivity, warmth, and humor. His highly recommended book (reviewed in Southwest Hydrology, Mar/Apr 2003) reveals all those qualities. Elaine M. Resnick established this scholarship in hydrology in memory of her late husband, Sol D. Resnick.

Q: I am graduating in May (Spring Semester) or August (Summer Sessions). Do I still qualify for the HAS Scholarships to be awarded for the next Academic Year?

A: The university's Scholarship Universe system has been set up to match a HAS student based on his or her current status. The matching data field has been set to equal "Full Time." However, only continuing students who will be enrolled for the full upcoming Academic Year (Fall and Spring) will be eligible for the HAS scholarships. We apologize for the confusion.

Q: I received one of the HAS scholarships last year (or in another previous year). Do I qualify again for the same scholarship?

A: Yes, we encourage you to apply again. You have a great opportunity to receive the scholarship again. We want to ensure we continue the ongoing support of our students.

Q: Can I apply for more than one scholarship?

A: Yes, you can apply to all of the scholarships that you are matched with. Retention of our students and ensuring they are financially supported is our top priority.

Q: If I am hired as an RA or TA, can I still apply for these scholarships?

A: Yes, these scholarships do not interfere for either RA or TA funding. They can supplement your graduate assistant/associate funding.

Q: Is a FAFSA form required for all scholarships?

A: No, only a scholarship that lists "financial need" as one of the criteria for selection requires submission of a FAFSA. If financial need is required, an international student would not be eligible to apply because he or she is not eligible to submit a FAFSA. The University of Arizona's office of Global Initiatives requires that each international student provide a bank or government certification of full financial resources to cover 100% of their tuition and living expenses. This document, known as the Financial Guarantee, is required of every international student before she or he can obtain a visa to study in the U.S.  However, not all scholarships are based on financial need. In those cases, an international student might be eligible to apply if she or he met the other eligibility requirements.  

Endowed scholarship applications are submitted in early spring. Winners are announced in late spring or early summer for the following Academic Year.

Awards will be disbursed during the subsequent Academic Year to continuing students.

If you will graduate in the same Spring Semester when applications are submitted (or will graduate during the Summer after applications are submitted), do not apply for these awards.

If it is determined that you will complete degree requirements prior to the intended semesters of disbursement, you will be deemed ineligible and your application withdrawn from consideration.

You must use the Scholarship Universe online application system to apply for these scholarships.

Scholarship Universe

The Scholarship Universe system will match you to scholarships based on how you answer the profile questions, so please answer all questions.

You may feel like you're answering the same question in different ways, but they are all important for your qualification profile.

1. Login to Scholarship Universe with your UA Net ID and password.
2. Answer ALL the questions in the PROFILE Tab. This step may take up to 30 minutes if you've never created a profile before. Your answers will be used to match you to UArizona and Non-UArizona scholarships for which you may be eligible to apply for year-round.
3. Look under the SCHOLARSHIPS Tab and your ELIGIBLE folder for blue-colored scholarships with a deadline of (TBA). Click on one to open it. UArizona scholarships will be blue and non-UArizona scholarships will be orange. You may be eligible for other UArizona scholarships, so read the description to confirm it is from the College of Science and/or the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.
4. Scroll down to the APPLY HERE section of the scholarship you opened. You will see instructions about how to apply. Some scholarship applications can be linked to multiple scholarships which may possibly qualify you for multiple awards.
5. Follow all of the instructions in the APPLY HERE section. You must upload all of the items required for each scholarship and complete the entire application to be eligible for the award.
6. Return to one of your College of Science or Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences scholarships and select your documents from the appropriate dropdown menu in the APPLY HERE section.
7. NOTE: If the application requires a Letter of Recommendation (LOR), please complete this step immediately as you must send an email request through the online application system to the individual from whom you are requesting the letter. It is very important to allow that person adequate time to respond. In your email message, be sure to include these details:

• Who you are
• What scholarship you are applying for and the requirements
• Why you chose him or her to write your letter (e.g., we worked together in your research lab, I was a TA or preceptor for your course, you are my research supervisor and know my qualifications)
• The scholarship deadline so they can submit the letter through the link provided before the deadline
• Your contact information (email, phone) so they may contact you
• Ask them to confirm with you--on receipt of your email--if they can (or cannot) meet the deadline. If they cannot, just login to the Scholarship University system and request a letter of recommendation from another individual.
• Check back periodically to see if they have submitted the letter of recommendation

IMPORTANT: Even though you may have completed the application and submitted all required documents, if the letter of recommendation is not submitted, your application is marked INCOMPLETE.

VERIFY: Once you verify that all of the scholarship application requirements have been uploaded and the letter of recommendation (if required) has been submitted, you are done!

Some, but not all, scholarships require a letter of recommendation (LOR). In your email message to the person you have asked to write a letter on your behalf, be sure to include these details:

• Who you are
• What scholarship you are applying for and the requirements
• Why you chose him or her to write your letter (e.g., we worked together in your research lab, I was a TA or preceptor for your course, you are my research supervisor and know my qualifications)
• The scholarship deadline so they can submit the letter through the link provided before the deadline
• Your contact information (email, phone) so they may contact you
• Ask them to confirm with you--on receipt of your email--if they can (or cannot) meet the deadline. If they cannot, just login to the Scholarship University system and request a letter of recommendation from another individual.
• Check back periodically to see if they have submitted the letter of recommendation

IMPORTANT: Even though you may have completed the application and submitted all required documents, if the letter of recommendation is not submitted, your application is marked INCOMPLETE.

VERIFY: Once you verify that all of the scholarship application requirements have been uploaded and the letter of recommendation (if required) has been submitted, you are done!

If you have any questions about eligibility for scholarships or have difficulty with the application process, please contact Graduate Program Coordinator Lupe Romero at romerog@arizona.edu or 520-621-.6831.