If you are a Wellesley student looking to do a year-long research in one of the areas of math and democracy, please write to us at contact@math-democracy.org. The program is highly selective and carries a stipend.

As an IMD Fellow, you would work closely with an IMD-affiliated Wellesley faculty. The fall semester is typically devoted to learning about the intersection of mathematics and democracy while the spring semester involves individual or group research projects. The program also includes at least one public presentation at an IMD-organized event.

In addition to selecting the topic that best fits your interests, you can opt to focus on theory-heavy projects or more applied ones; the latter often involve a statistics and data analysis component. Some recent projects have included the study of hypergraphs and political structures, power distribution in the UN Security Council, simplicial complexes and quantification of power, category-theoretic approach to Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, compactness measures of gerrymandering, proportional representation, and political quantitative literacy in K-12 education.

As of 2026-27, the Fellows Program is open to faculty and undergraduates from other colleges and universities in the U.S. and carries some funding to support the projects. The applications for the 2026-27 year are closed, but feel free to write to us at contact@math-democracy.org with questions about the 2027-28 program.

See below for more information about the Fellows Program from past years.