The Penn Humanities Forum awards five (5) one-year Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships each academic year to junior scholars in the humanities who are no more than eight years out of their doctorate and who are not yet tenured (may not be tenured during the fellowship year). Scholars are required to spend the year (September–May) in residence at Penn.

Humanists and those in related fields (e.g., anthropology, history of science) are eligible to apply. Exclusions are proposals in social science disciplines, educational curriculum building, and work by performing artists (n.b., scholars of performance are eligible). The fellowship is open to all scholars, national and international, who meet application terms.

The programs of the Penn Humanities Forum are conceived through yearly topics that invite broad interdisciplinary collaboration. For the 2016–2017 academic year, the topic is Translation.