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U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program

The Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) awards fellowships to students pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines (PDF or HTML). This program advances the transportation workforce by helping to attract the nation's brightest minds to the field of transportation, encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees, and helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.

From its initial support of graduate research fellowships in 1983, to the current program's inception in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, the DDETFP has awarded over $50 million to the brightest minds in the transportation industry. From this investment, fellows have pushed for innovative change in multimodal areas from highway infrastructure to aviation to maritime, making the industry more effective and efficient. Fellows pursue careers in academia, private industry, and public service, becoming leaders across the nation.

The DDETFP is an annual program and information on how to apply is posted through a notice of funding opportunity on Grants.gov when the award cycle opens. The categories of Fellowships include:

  • DDETFP Graduate Fellowship provides funding for students to pursue Master's or Doctoral degrees in transportation-related disciplines.
  • DDETFP Local Competition encourages institutions of higher education (IHE) that are minority serving institutions and community colleges to apply for administering a DDETFP competition on their campus.
  • DDETFP Grants for Research Fellowship (GRF) is structured to provide opportunities for students to work with USDOT program offices which are interested in attracting workforce-ready students pursuing advanced degrees in transportation-related disciplines.

DDETFP awards are merit-based and generally result in 150-200 grants annually, subject to the availability of funds.

Part of the DDETFP supports Fellows to participate in the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting and in 2018 we celebrated the 25th Research Showcase anniversary as highlighted in a recent Public Roads magazine article.

Fellows, faculty advisors, and staff gathered for group photograph during TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC
Fellows, faculty advisors, and staff gathered for group photograph during TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

If you have questions, please email Latoya Jones, Eisenhower Program Coordinator, at latoya.jones@dot.gov.