Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship
The Population Health Initiative, in partnership with the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship and CoMotion, offers a Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Program in which students explore how best to deploy social enterprise models for innovations that are developed by University of Washington researchers.
The program supports graduate fellows from different disciplines to work on a range of different projects. Students from a range of disciplines are encouraged to apply, including business, engineering, social work, law, public policy and public health.
Each fellow will have primary responsibility for one of the projects, but fellows will work as a team, with each fellow contributing their disciplinary expertise to all four projects. Fellows will be guided through a structured workplan by program faculty and staff, and will also have access to mentors and subject matter experts.
We are hosting a virtual informational session for the 2026 program from 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (Pacific) on Thursday, March 12, 2026. You can choose to attend in-person or virtually. Please visit the session’s registration page to learn more.
Summer 2026 projects
The projects for the summer 2026 cohort are being developed by UW researchers to improve different aspects of population health. All innovations are seeking novel ideas for how they can be financially sustainable while ensuring that the societal impact of their work remains as important as any potential revenue generation.
Nuestro Valor
Some of the best produce in the U.S. is grown in Yakima, Benton and Franklin Counties (rural Central Washington), yet many locals face food insecurity and are not able to access these fruits and vegetables due to structural, historical and political inequities. One way to access fresh produce is at retail food stores (tiendas), which are a crucial access point for Latinos to purchase culturally relevant, healthy and balanced foods.
Dr. Barbara Baquero’s team partners with community leaders and members in those counties to adapt evidence-based interventions to address behavioral, social, environmental and structural factors that impact Latino communities (e.g., limited public transportation, inaccessible social services, low wages, limited food grocers). Despite these barriers to healthy foods, many Latinos regularly shop at tiendas, which offer access to culturally desired foods and services. El Valor is an effective, culturally grounded retail food store intervention to promote the purchasing and consumption of fruits and vegetables among Latino shoppers. This fellow will support this team by conducting a deep dive into customer discovery, exploring opportunities for integration and adoption within the ecosystem, completing a marketing strategy analysis and identifying pathways to program sustainability.
aFloats (Acoustic Micro-float)
Underwater sound plays a critical role in the life cycles of many marine animals. However, our understanding of spatial variations in these “soundscapes” (the acoustic equivalent to a landscape) is incomplete. This is particularly true in the costal ocean where there are a multitude of industrial activities and dynamic oceanographic forcing can cause rapid evolution in time. The leading reasons for these knowledge gaps are the cost and complexity of deploying spatially-distributed measurement systems and uncertainties in acoustic propagation model inputs.
Dr. Trevor Harrison’s team is developing cost-effective, volumetric acoustic measurements by integrating hydrophones with profiling floats. These systems will be deployed in Lake Washington to characterize their noise floors and ability to localize broadband and narrowband sound sources. This fellow will support this team by conducting a deep dive into customer discovery, conduct a marketing strategy and identify pathways for adoption and sustainability.
SMART-Wrap
Providers of intensive services for youth with complex needs and their families lack efficient, technology-assisted systems to get real-time input from families on their well-being and satisfaction with care. This can lead to lack of engagement in care, declines in well-being and crises among the youth and families served.
Dr. Eric Bruns and his team have created SMART-Wrap (Short Message Assisted Responsive Treatment for Wraparound) to bridge the gap between care intention and care reality with a real-time, easy to use, text-based communication tool for youth and families. SMART-Wrap prompts families to complete brief surveys that allow care teams to prevent crises before they happen and help provide families with the support they need. This is a wraparound innovation intended to coordinate care in real time for youth to ensure optimal care. This fellow will support this team by conducting a deep dive into customer discovery, conduct a marketing strategy and identify pathways for adoption and sustainability in various system level organizations.
TUNE: Hearing screening tool
Globally, 34 million children have profound hearing loss, the majority of whom live in resource limited settings. Unrecognized early life hearing loss has far-reaching impacts on educational and economic attainment. With early detection and treatment, however, these effects may be reversed or mitigated, allowing the child to have opportunities to thrive. It is therefore standard practice in high income countries to universally screen newborns for hearing. However, screening is rarely available in low resource settings, in part because of the high cost of screening equipment.
Dr. Emily Gallagher’s team created TUNE, a low-cost smartphone-based hearing screening device that can be used for early detection of hearing loss. This device will be most useful in underserved communities, though it can be used anywhere. This tool can screen hearing with the same accuracy as more expensive conventional equipment. This device has the ability to revolutionize universal newborn hearing screening globally in low- and middle-income countries, thereby allowing early identification and treatment for children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing, regardless of where they are born. Their goal is to commercialize this important tool and make it accessible to medical professionals globally. This fellow will support this team by conducting a deep dive into customer discovery, conduct a marketing analysis and identify pathways for adoption and sustainability.
Student eligibility
We will be offering fellowships to four graduate students. Students at the master’s and doctoral levels and professional students from all UW schools and colleges are eligible to apply. This eligibility includes international students.
Applicants must be enrolled in a degree-granting program at a UW campus (Seattle, Tacoma or Bothell). Students who are expecting to graduate in Spring 2025 are not eligible to apply.
Compensation
Fellows will be compensated up to $10,000 over a 10-week period, working approximately 30 hours per week. These roles are not benefits eligible.
Timeline
- Application period opens on February 9, 2026.
- Applications will be due by 12 p.m. (Pacific) on April 3, 2026.
- Applicants will be notified whether they are invited to interview for the fellowship positions the week of April 6, 2026.
- Interviews will be scheduled for the week of April 12 – 16, 2026.
- Candidates will be notified by late April as to whether they were selected.
- Fellowships are for a 10-week period over the summer, starting on June 22, 2026, and ending August 28, 2026.
Application instructions
All applicants must submit the following documents:
- Recent CV or resume.
- Unofficial transcript.
- One- to two-page cover letter outlining why you are interested in the fellowship program and how your skills will enable you to contribute to the success of the project. The application should indicate if there is a specific project that you are particularly interested in.
Please combine the CV/resume, transcript and cover letter into a single .pdf file and upload your application to REDCap.
Select candidates will be required to participate in a 30-minute interview for the fellowship positions.
Review criteria
Applications will initially be reviewed by representatives of the Population Health Initiative, the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship and the Evans School. Select candidates will then be invited to interview for the fellowship positions. Candidates will be notified whether they have been selected for interviews according to the published timeline.
Interviews will last for 30-minutes and will be with a panel consisting of the faculty and staff who reviewed the applications.
Applicants will be selected based on the following criteria:
- Demonstrated the analytical skills necessary to complete the project
- Demonstrated interest in social entrepreneurship
- Academic performance to date
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills (interviewing, writing and presentation skills)
- Demonstrated experience working within in a team environment
Questions
Please contact pophlth@uw.edu with questions regarding this fellowship program.
Past Fellows
View the previous cohorts, projects and project results for past summers.