Hi everyone.

I'm a PhD student in the social sciences going into my second year next month. I've been made aware of the Kennedy scholarship which can be used by a current PhD student to fund a year as a Visiting scholar/fellow/student at either MIT or Harvard.

One of my favourite scholars (extremely well established professor) is in the STS department at MIT but she's studying a similar phenomenon from a different perspective (more science focused, whereas I'm from an interpretivist background). Despite this I think working with her would be fantastic and could actually enrich my PhD (e.g. more attention to history of technology and to the 'techy' aspects).

I have never met this person, and she wont have heard of me as I'm in a different field and only have two publications so far. However, after speaking to the Scholarship committee it seems it's very important to be able to say 'Prof X supports my application/ I have been invited to study with Prof X'- otherwise you wont even be considered. Plus, you need to have a clear outline of what you'll do in the 10 months in the US, so I'll need to speak to her first to see if this is even a possibility and whether I'd actually be doing anything worthwhile.

Trouble is, I'm not really sure how to approach her. She's a top professor at MIT, I'm a lowly PhD student and not at a particularly well regarded University (although I'd say I'm pretty bright and my work is original and in a very interesting area). It seems a bit presumptuous to just email and ask if she'd be interested in me joining her for 10 months. Plus I can't find any up to date information on current projects, and she mainly publishes books every few years rather than in journals, so it's hard to put together a plan for collaboration without speaking to her first. I'm considering sending a speculative email telling her about my work and suggesting that it draws some parallels with her past work, but the draft email seems a bit 'me, me me'. Plus deadline for scholarship application is 28th October so I don't want to be too subtle.

Can anyone advise me on:
1)What to say, and how direct to be.
2)What does a year as a Visiting Fellow involve? What is most peoples' reasons for spending a year as a visiting fellow? What do they do during this time?
3)Am I being overambitious?!

Many thanks!
8-)