The 2026 DSSG Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University is open to graduate students currently in a US university. We can unfortunately not accommodate students not at a US university this year.
DSSG (at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore) will begin May 25, 2026 and end July 31, 2026
The 2026 program is an in-person, full-time, 10-week program where fellows work in teams supported by full-time senior data science mentors and project managers as well as attend workshops, lectures, and other activities.
The Fellowship is a project-based training program designed to produce data scientists and Ml/AI practitioners with strong skills in solving real-world problems and an understanding, excitement, and passion for solving problems with social impact. We have three goals (prioritized in that order):
- Training Fellows: We want to help create the next generation of data scientists who have the data science skills to solve real-world problems and are passionate about focusing their efforts on solving social challenges.
- Exposing and training governments and non profits to better use data to make better decisions.
- Community: Seeding a community of people and organizations working together to make an impact.
Collaborative, Ethical, and Inclusive. We know we don’t know everything and want everyone involved to shape the Fellowship. We’re open to ideas, criticism, and help. Yes, we are data-driven but more than that, we’re problem-driven. We care about impact and how our work is used to improve society in a fair and equitable manner.
Most of the summer, Fellows work with their team on their project. We augment that with lectures, hands-on workshops, seminars (from local and visiting guests), happy hours (with the local tech, data science, non-profit, and government communities), meet-ups, field trips, and other social activities (sailing trips, tours, concerts, etc.). Some of these are planned in advance, others are co-created and led by the Fellows and mentors as they learn about what they would like to do over the summer.
We try to balance getting things done with learning and training. We believe that the best way to learn is by doing, and the fellows who join us want to make an impact by solving the problem they’re tackling.
DSSG 2026 will take place at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD
There is no single profile for an ideal fellow. Successful Fellows have different skill profiles and backgrounds in order to create a collaborative community. Everyone has some programming, statistics and data analysis skills in addition to a passion for making social impact. Some are stronger at Computer Science and Machine Learning. Others have a strong Applied Math or Statistics background. Some come from a quantitative Social Science, Economics, or Public Policy background. Others have Physics or Chemistry or Geography or Linguistics degrees. We’re not expecting you to be awesome at everything. Tell us what you’re good at and what you’d like to learn. In addition, personality and communication skills matter! If you’re passionate about a cause or social issue, tell us about it in your application. If there’s a recent project you’ve done that you’re proud of, we’d like to hear about it.
Although we’d love to have people at all levels involved, for 2026, we prefer you to be a graduate student to get the most out of this program. This is because we have learned over the years that fellows with prior skills are able to both get the most out of their experience, as well as contribute the most. That said, if you feel like you may not fit the typical criteria of a Fellow, but have both the computational skills and passion to excel, we’d still love to see your application.
Typically, we get 600-1000 applications for 24-40 positions
Your recommenders should be the two people who know you and your work best. This can be your advisor or professor, or your work/research manager. It is not necessary that they are faculty members at your university, but we recommend getting letters from people that can comment on your academic background, practical skills in data science, your ability to communicate and collaborate effectively, and your passion for social impact.
If necessary, yes. Please do the following:
1) Send the link to the new reference.
2) Send us the name of, contact info of, and your relation to the new reference at dssg at datascienceforsocialgood dot org.
3) Send us the name and contact info of the reference you’d like to remove at dssg at datascienceforsocialgood dot org.
Any recommendations submitted after the deadline will be added to your application, but reviewers can only take into account information available to them at the time of review so we highly recommend you ensure your recommendations are in before the deadline.
Once applications close, we will start the rolling review process to get back to you in 1-2 weeks for an interview, and by mid March with a final decision.
No, not at all! We love CS geeks but in order to solve high impact problems, we need teams with a broad set of skills. We want people from all kinds of backgrounds including sociology, economics, public policy, public health, geography, physics, and chemistry. However, we do want you to have experience with programming, data analysis and a passion for making social impact. That means that applicants should have had some prior experience using a programming language (such as Python) to analyze data
Not necessarily but this is designed for current student or recent graduates. If you have finished a degree (undergrad, Masters, PhD) in the past couple of years, you should be ok to apply. We’ve had post-docs, as well as people in industry (recent graduates), and people in between undergrad and gradschool come as fellows in previous years. We prefer you to be a current graduate student but may be able to make exceptions
No, you don’t have to be a US citizen to apply but for the 2026 program, you have to be in the US already and not require visa sponsorship from Johns Hopkins University. We cna give you an acceptance lekter you need for an OPT (if you’re on an F1 visa)
Yes, the fellowship is paid. The stipends are fixed but vary by the cost of living of the fellowship location. IT should be more than enough to cover travel, housing, and other expenses over the summer.
While budgeting for the program, please keep in mind that the stipend qualifies as taxable income. Due to our large number of international fellows, we cannot advise on the tax implications related to the stipend. We recommend consulting with a lawyer for tax-related questions/concerns.
We will be able to provide housing on campus at Johns Hopkins University. Move-in date for the JHU housing will be Sunday, May 24, 2026.
No. We can make some exceptions for up to 2 days off during the summer (for critical cases), but spending a week away from the work is not fair to the other fellows on your team. If you need to be away for a week during the summer, this may not be the summer for you to participate in DSSG. In addition, everyone must be in attendance for the entire first week and last week of the fellowship.
Partially. We spend the months leading up the Fellowship designing projects with project partners. Once the Fellows are selected, we will send you a list of these projects and ask you to give us your preferences. We’ll then use these preferences and the needs of the projects to create project teams.
You can see past projects from last year here. Projects will be in partnership with government and non profit organizations and will be in areas of education, healthcare, energy, community development, disaster relief, and public safety.
A lot of the project teams end up writing papers but that’s not the goal of the summer fellowship. We encourage people to do good work with real impact and the paper is often a by-product of that good work
Yes, we are hosting information sessions – watch our website for dates.
If you are certain that your question is not covered in the Frequently Asked Questions, contact us. If your question is in the FAQs, we may give you a hard time about it and may not answer your email