Professional Pipelines

This project enables current doctoral students to complete paid internships outside of the academy to better understand and prepare for leadership in the emerging spiritual infrastructure.

We have partnered with the American Council of Learned Societies to run two national competitions that enable early stage doctoral students to complete internships in positions related to the emerging spiritual infrastructure outside of the academy. The first cohort was announced in April 2026; information on the next round of applications is forthcoming.

Through the previous Public Fellows and current Leading Edge Fellowship program, ACLS has been highly successful in placing recent PhD students with nonprofit organizations for two year appointments. We take up these programs’ premise that graduate students with training in humanistic and social scientific approaches to religion have the unique ability to solve problems for, and enhance the mission of, related efforts in foundations, non-profit organizations and other settings outside of the academy.

The core questions that guide the Professional Pipeline arm of this project are as follows:

• How do we prepare students – especially doctoral students – to be religious leaders of the future in various nodes of the spiritual infrastructure of the future?
• How do we ensure that students already in the training pipeline receive the mentorship and professional experiences outside of the academy to match what they are already receiving in the pipeline to do the leadership work that will be needed in the future?
• How do we build relationships between the leaders of the spiritual infrastructure now and of the future to best facilitate continued collaborative learning and understanding?

This page will be updated as the internship application and selection process develops.