Thank you for your interest in participating in the Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession (CSQIEP) Mentoring Program.
Purpose and Eligibility
The program seeks to match Ph.D. students and early-career researchers in the economics profession with more senior members of the profession who have volunteered to serve as mentors with the goal of supporting LGBTQ+ identified economists.
Eligible mentors include individuals who have completed a Ph.D. in economics or a related discipline as of the application date. Eligible mentees include current Ph.D. students, post-docs, junior faculty, and other early-career Ph.D.s working in the field of economics or other related disciplines. Junior faculty and other early-career economists can participate in the program as both a mentee (paired with a senior mentor) and as a mentor (to Ph.D. students). The program is open to LGBTQ+ economists and those who want to support LGBTQ+ economists. We are not currently accepting applications from undergraduate students, masters students, pre-docs, or non-Ph.D. researchers, but may do so in the future.
Note: This program is distinct from the annual CSQIEP Mentoring Conference which takes place during the summer with applications due in mid-Spring. Interested individuals can apply to both programs. For more details on the CSQIEP Mentoring Conference, please see: https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/csqiep/mentor-conference.
Application
We are currently recruiting mentees and mentors for the 2026-27 academic year. If you participated in the past, you may sign up again, in which case you will be matched with different individual(s) than you were previously.
The deadline to apply is November 1st, 2026.
To apply: Both mentees and mentors are required to fill out a brief questionnaire so that we can implement the best possible match. If you are interested in applying to be both a mentee and a mentor, please fill out both forms. Organizers will do their best to find a match and honor stated match preferences, but may not be able to do so in all circumstances. Mentors and mentees will be notified of their match in the month following the application deadline. These forms can be found at the following links:
Note: We often have an oversupply of mentees relative to mentors, so we greatly appreciate advanced junior mentees who are also able to mentor a Ph.D. student or mentors who are willing to take on more than one mentee.
The Mentoring Relationship
CSQIEP's role in this process is purely facilitating matches; once matches are made, it is up to the mentee and the mentor to schedule meetings at an agreed-upon frequency. We provide detailed information on the requirements and expectations of the program in the CSQIEP Mentoring Contract (see below). The contract also discusses issues of privacy and confidentiality, and provides resources should any problems or concerns arise in the course of the mentoring relationship. All prospective mentors and mentees must read and agree to the contract before signing up for the program.
While it is up to each pair to decide when and how much to meet, we recommend about 1 hour every 2-3 months in addition to being available should unexpected questions or issues arise.
Topics for mentoring include a variety of professional issues that may arise in the course of obtaining an economics Ph.D. or working as an early-career economist. These may include:
Professional development: finding an advisor, navigating the job market, teaching, service, preparing for tenure, etc.
Research: choosing a job market topic, the publication process, applying for grants, working on LGBTQ+ topics, etc.
Personal issues: whether to come out as a graduate student or faculty member, choosing a job/location, finding a community, etc.