UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Proposals are now being accepted for the 2026 M. G. Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Research Awards. A maximum of $2,500 per project will be awarded, with funding made available through the Marjorie Grant Whiting Endowment for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledge.
Current Penn State graduate and undergraduate students are invited to submit proposals to conduct research between May 2026 and March 2027 on topics that focus on aspects of Indigenous knowledge. The deadline for submissions is March 16, and the application form and submission instructions are available online.
Presented annually, the Whiting Awards fund research topics that focus on aspects of Indigenous knowledge for an undergraduate capstone course or honors, master’s or doctoral thesis. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines local and Indigenous knowledge as “the understandings, skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings.”
Graduate and undergraduate students enrolled at any Penn State campus, including Penn State World Campus, are eligible to apply.
Faculty volunteers are also needed to review proposals.
The award program is administered by Penn State University Libraries. A list of past recipients with descriptions of their research projects is available on the University Libraries website.
The Marjorie Grant Whiting Endowment for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledge was created in 2008 with a gift from the California-based Marjorie Grant Whiting Center for Humanity, Arts and the Environment. The center was established after Whiting’s death in 1995 as a way to preserve the scientific and humanistic legacy of a woman whose career as a nutritional anthropologist contributed to an understanding of the cultural interface between diet and health.
For more information, contact Jacob Gordon, reference and instruction librarian at the Robert E. Eiche Library, Penn State Altoona, at jeg6049@psu.edu.