2026 AEA CSQIEP Economics PhD Student and Early Career Economist Mentoring Conference

The fourth annual AEA CSQIEP Mentoring Conference for Economics PhD Students and Early Career Economists will be held July 6-8 2026, in Chicago, IL. The goal of the conference is to support economics PhD students who are LGBTQ+ identified or who are working to support LGBTQ+ identified economics PhD students. The conference also aims to support early career economists (generally those within 10 years of PhD). The conference focuses on job market preparation, research feedback, LGBTQ+ job market concerns, tenure/promotion, and building mentoring and community networks.
 
Last Year’s Conference Program: 2025 Mentoring Conference Program
 
This conference is sponsored by the Committee for the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession (CSQIEP) and the American Economic Association, with additional support from several academic partners. CSQIEP’s goal is to cover travel and lodging costs for all PhD student mentees; in past years we have also been able to cover some portion of travel costs for early career mentees.
 
Applications are open now and will close at 11:59pm EST on Sunday, April 12th.
 
Application Link: https://survey.sogolytics.com/r/CSQIEP2026Mentoring
 
Eligibility Requirements for Students (Mentees)

• You must be currently enrolled in or on temporary leave from a PhD program in economics or a related field at an institution in the United States, Mexico, or Canada. Related fields include: economic specialties such as agricultural economics or environmental economics, or public policy/administration or business PhD programs in which the program requires taking the economics PhD core theory sequence of courses.
• You must plan to go on the job market in 2026-27 or 2027-28.
• You must have an unpublished research paper that can be workshopped at the conference and in the 6 or so weeks before the conference. If you are on the 2026-27 job market, this paper would ideally be your JMP.
• You must commit to reviewing carefully one co-mentee’s work and delivering constructive, written comments in advance of the conference.
• You must commit to reviewing 1-4 other co-mentee’s work and delivering constructive oral comments at the conference.
• You must commit to abiding by the AEA Code of Professional Conduct before, during, and after the event.

Eligibility Requirements for Mentors
The eligibility requirements for conference mentors are

• You must have graduated with a PhD in Economics (or related fields) by Summer 2026.
• You must attend a mandatory zoom session on being a mentor in late Spring 2026, date TBD.
• You must commit to interacting with your approximately 3 to 6 assigned mentees and likely one co-mentor before and during the conference (and, as your schedule permits, after the conference as well, though this is not required). We envision mentors meeting their mentees in a group zoom format once or twice in May/June before meeting in person at the conference in July.
• You must commit to abiding by the AEA Code of Professional Conduct before, during, and after the event.

Please note that in recent years we have had more potential mentors apply than we can accommodate at the conference. Our primary criterion in matching mentors to mentees is based on research expertise in the fields of the mentee applicants, which change from year to year. Our plan is to keep all mentor applications on file such that if we cannot accommodate you as a mentor in 2026, we hope to be able to do so in a future year.
 
Any questions about the conference can be sent to the conference co-organizers: Martha Olney (olney@berkeley.edu), Ben Harrell (bharrell@trinity.edu), and Kitt Carpenter (christopher.s.carpenter@vanderbilt.edu).