Fellowships
The Processing Foundation Fellowship Program proudly announces its return for 2025, featuring an invigorating theme: Data Storytelling.
We invite individuals and collectives working across creative coding, interactive fiction, time-based media, and live performances to propose artistic or technical projects that explore innovative approaches to telling stories through data.
Fellows will receive support through a $10,000 stipend, mentorship, workshops, public programs, and community engagement opportunities.
2025 Focus Area
We seek interdisciplinary projects that amplify, challenge, or build upon existing or real-time data to tell compelling stories.
This year, we are committed to fostering projects that push the boundaries of artistic disciplines, ensuring that code is leveraged as a transformative tool for expression and narrative innovation. Therefore, we are particularly excited to support creative or technical projects incorporating Processing, p5.js, or the p5.js sound library.
In 2025, we are thrilled to offer two fully remote Processing Foundation Fellowships and one in-person Extended Realities Fellowship in Los Angeles, California.
Processing Foundation Fellowships (Remote)
We welcome collaborations between coders, artists, designers, storytellers, scientists, and initiatives that activate cultural spaces and community archives.
As a Processing Foundation Fellow:
- You can be based anywhere in the world.
- You will participate in the fully remote fellowship program.
- You will be supported through mentorship, workshops, and community engagement opportunities.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this year’s fellowship, we are excited to support collective/collaborative projects in addition to individual proposals.
Extended Realities Fellowship (In-Person)
We are launching a partnership with the Unusual Suspects Theater Company and Street Poets to support one fellow project. This is a unique opportunity to produce original short-form plays in collaboration with the Unusual Suspects Theater Company’s Youth Theater Conservatory.
As an Extended Realities Fellow:
- You must be available to meet in Los Angeles during the fellowship period.
- Your fellowship involves participating in an in-person youth devise theater program led by the Unusual Suspects Theater Company and Street Poets.
- You are expected to rapidly prototype XR concepts by working closely with youths.
We seek individuals or collectives with art direction and coding/engineering backgrounds for this opportunity.
Program Guidelines
Community
The Fellowship Program follows the p5.js' community statement.
Regular Cohort Meetings
At the start of the fellowship, an introductory meeting with all 2025 fellows will take place virtually. Fellows are encouraged to build community with their cohort during regular Zoom meetups and over Discord.
Talks and Workshops
Processing Foundation's Mentor Partners and alums will provide online talks and workshops to this year’s cohort. These sessions are meant to create connections and support knowledge-sharing within the community. Fellows will also engage in town hall forums with our partner program pr05 and present their work at the public showcase.
Professional Development
Throughout the fellowship, the program considers the fellows' specific needs and connects them with industry professionals and community partners. Once the program is completed, fellows are invited to join the Processing Foundation Alum Network.
Project Documentation
- Progress updates must be posted after each progress meeting with the fellow’s mentor.
- Fellow projects are featured on the Processing Foundation’s website, along with the fellow’s bio, images, and a link to the project. These materials must be provided by the start of the fellowship and updated at the end.
- Final online documentation of fellowship projects is required. Documentation can take many forms—a GitHub repository, a series of video tutorials, a website, etc. We are open to what fits best for the work, in terms of format.
Project Legacy
Fellowship projects must be open source.
Project legacy is an important component of fellowships. We encourage applicants to think about how projects may support future sustainability or archiving of the work.
This includes, but is not limited to: code commenting and reusability, documentation, prioritized to do lists / roadmaps (if there’s more to do after your fellowship is completed), laying out infrastructure that enables others to carry on, summary of discoveries for research-focused projects, etc.
Stipend
The stipend for the 2025 Fellowship is $10,000 USD. The stipend will be paid in four installments: $2,500 USD at the start of the fellowship, the remaining split throughout the fellowship, and the remainder upon completion.
Mentor Partners
We are honored to partner with the following organizations to provide multidisciplinary mentorship to our 2025 fellows:
- Arab Image Foundation
- Data Garden Collective
- Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation
- MIT Open Doc Lab
- The Unusual Suspects Theater Company
Additionally, the Processing Foundation supports projects in partnership with art institutions you are connected to, work with, or are in community with. If your organization wants to learn more about partnership opportunities, please contact foundation@processingfoundation.org.
Application opens on April 1, 2025.
To learn more about the Processing Foundation Fellowships and the Extended Realities Fellowship, please join info sessions hosted by the Processing Foundation on Mar 29, 12pm ET or Apr 10, 8pm ET.
Additional questions for the fellowship can be directed to fellowship@processingfoundation.org
Over a Decade of Impact
Since 2013, the Processing Foundation Fellowship has been an incubator for imagining a just and equitable relationship with technology.
Our multidisciplinary program supports artists, coders, and educators to create technical and socially engaged projects. The scope of our work reflects the diversity of our community, building on a broad range of practices, including tool-making, participatory design, and critical pedagogy.
Our organization is invested in both rapid and long-term impacts. Projects such as p5.js and the p5.js Editor were conceived by fellows a decade ago and currently serve millions around the globe.
As a software nonprofit centering on access and empowerment, We believe in technological innovation powered by community participation. Visit our Medium to learn more about Processing Foundation Fellows, in their own words.
Fellowships 2024
Ahnjili ZhuParris with Dan Xu, Colette Aliman and Alyssa Gersony, Luís dos Santos Miguel, Dorothy Howard and David Isaac Hecht, Anh (Autumn) Pham, Roopa Vasudevan, Amad Ansari, Buffy Sierra, and Roxanne Harris
Fellowships 2023
Zainab Aliyu, Joanne Amarisa with Mei Leong, Septia Nurmala, Echa Amalia, Arshi Saleh, and Larissa Serafina, Bobby Joe Smith III and Nat Decker, Kendra Krueger and Zahra Hassan, Nhan Phan, Kelly Chen and Olivia McKayla Ross, Liam Baum, and Stephanie T. Jones
Fellowships 2022
aarón montoya-moraga, Atilio Barreda II, Bhavik Singh, coralys carter, David Marcelino Cayetano and Yadira Sánchez, Gregg Mudhuwiwa, Joslenne Peña, Minne Atairu, Morgan P. Vickers, Munus Shih and Yen Ching Lu, Rolando Vargas, Sierra Gilliam.
Fellowships 2021
Adekemi Sijuwade-Ukadike, Angi Chau, Chia Amisola, Computational Mama, Cy X, Felipe Santos Gomes, Julia Brasil, Katherine Finn Zander, Marcela Mancino, Indigemoji, Omar Verduga, Shawn Patrick Higgins, Ted Davis.
Fellowships 2020
Abdellah Iraamane, Achim Koh, Andreas Refsgaard, Aren Davey, Bomani Oseni McClendon, Emily Martinez, George Profenza, Inhwa Yeom and Seonghyeon Kim, Kalila Shapiro, Michael O’Connell.
Fellowships 2019
Doeke Wartena, Emily Fields, Evelyn Masso and Stalgia Grigg, Layla Quinones, Manaswini Das, Nancy Chauhan, and Shaharyar Shamshi, Matilda Wysocki, Prince Steven Annor, Qianqian Ye.
Fellowships 2018
Ari Melenciano, Courtney Morgan, George Boateng, Jose Orea, Kaitlyn M. O’Bryan, Kate Lockwood, and Thomas J. Reinartz Jr., Kenneth Lim, Kirit Tanna, Luis Morales-Navarro and Mathura Govindarajan, Saber Khan, Vijith Assar
Fellowships 2017
Andrew Nicolaou, Cassie Tarakajian, DIY Girls, Gottfried Haider, Niklas Peters, Saskia Freeke, Susan Evans
Fellowships 2016
Allison Parrish, Atul Varma and Jessica Klein, Claire Kearney-Volpe, The Digital Citizens Lab, Luisa Pereira and Tega Brain
Fellowships 2013
Greg Borenstein, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Wilm Thoben