These highly competitive fellowships are designed to meet the critical need to recruit underrepresented minority graduate students to the University of Pittsburgh, to support and retain them, and eventually enhance their presence in the professorate. K. Leroy Irvis Fellowships are deployed primarily to recruit the most outstanding new graduate students to the University of Pittsburgh. Ph.D. programs nominate admitted students to the Dietrich School’s Office for Graduate Studies for consideration for this prestigious program, which offers academic guidance and cohort-based mentoring alongside the financial support of a non-duty bearing first-year fellowship.