The ABLE Fund for Special Concentrations

The Amara Balthrop-Lewis Endowed Fund for Special Concentrations (the ABLE fund) provides program-based financial support to students who wish to deepen their intellectual immersion in their field. As scholars outside of established departments, Special Concentrators must often scramble to put together financial resources for research funding, materials acquisition, and conference travel. While such activities are not critical to the success of any undergraduate scholar at Harvard, Special Concentrators are often operating at the very far reaches of interdisciplinarity, thus particularly benefit from the opportunity to support their intellectual interests outside of standard academic categories.

 

The role of this funding is to enable Special Concentrators to pursue projects directly related to their concentration, that they might not otherwise be able to support financially. For example, a student might wish to pursue research for their thesis or capstone project, that incurs travel, archive access, or duplication costs. Many of our concentrators would like to present papers at academic conferences, and this fund can be tapped to support travel, and conference fees. Some concentrators require specific materials or software for their research, thesis, or capstone projects and can apply for ABLE funds to offset those costs.  Finally, we are also open to your ideas! (Within reason – please no proposals to research surfing in Tahiti for example.) 

 

Applications

To apply for ABLE funding, Special Concentrators should complete the application form which requests a description of the project, including how it is related to their concentration, as well as a budget and a statement from their Faculty Adviser endorsing the proposal. This form should be sent to specialconc@fas.harvard.edu. 

Application deadlines for the 2025-26 academic year:

  • October 17, 2025 (for winter and January)
  • April 17, 2026 (for summer)  

Successful applicants will also be asked to provide a post-activity report.

The ABLE Fund was created by a generous donation from Amara Balthrop-Lewis Hastings ‘97 and her husband Al Hastings.