NICHD Office of Education

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The Office of Education delivers workshops, programs, and individualized opportunities to a population averaging 250 trainees, including postdoctoral, visiting, and research fellows; clinical fellows and medical students; graduate students; and postbaccalaureate fellows, as well as summer trainees. The activities include, typically: public speaking workshops, job interviewing, writing and editorial services for professional school and job applications, grantsmanship workshops, research ethics training, academic and non-academic career seminars and webinars and one-on-one counseling, clinical shadowing, teaching opportunities through our annual NICHD postbac course and a training program with the University of Maryland, and lab management programs. We are also actively working on a collaboration with Howard University for research, teaching, mentoring opportunities. An annual retreat for fellows and graduate students is held each spring to address scientific developments and careers, which includes a keynote address, fellow presentations, career round table discussions led by NICHD alumni, and a poster presentation by each attendee. The program is developed and run by a fellow-student steering committee. We also work collaboratively with various office and scientific groups within DIR to achieve overall training goals and policy development, such as tenure track mentoring, fellow stipends increase, and affinity group seminar series for invited speakers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our TmT (Three-minute Talks) competition and the Summer Internship Program (SIP) were postponed until 2021 as well as the remaining postbac shadowing opportunities for the year. Among the office's accomplishments from the past year, Dr. Triesta Fowler took on a new role in the Office of Education as Director of Communications and Outreach, and Dr. Fady Hannah-Shmouni took on the new role of Director of Graduate Medical Education. The office developed an online Annual Progress Review (APR) for fellows, launched in 2016, to track scientific and career development and progress. As part of investigators' assessments of mentoring, these fellow APR reports are also provided for the BSC site visits. In addition, a new online fellows exit survey has been developed and will be released soon for our trainee population. This exit survey aims to obtain a comprehensive view of trainees experiences at NICHD and to stay connected with the trainees and learn of their career moves, as well as to help us improve our training program. The database of NICHD alumni from 2008 to the present continues to be updated, and we have compiled a valuable list of organizations that accepts grant applications from NIH intramural fellows, both NIH and non-NIH funding mechanisms. The 13th NICHD Division of Intramural Research Mentor of the Year awards will be announced at the November 13, 2020 virtual NICHD DIPHR & DIR Joint Scientific Retreat. For NICHD, 18 FARE awards were made for the 2021 competition. In addition to the Fellows Intramural Grants Supplement (FIGS) continuing to recognize and stimulate grant applications among fellows, we launched the fourth cycle for our competitive internal funding opportunity for NICHD postdoctoral and clinical fellows, our Intramural Research Fellowships (IRFs). Its ultimate goal is to promote grant writing and enhance awareness of various components for an NIH grant application. Our institute has established an exchange program with Inserm, the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (France), which provides a unique opportunity for US and French scientists to obtain postdoctoral training with French and US mentors, respectively, and 2nd and 3rd year medical students from the Santa Casa de So Paulo School of Medical Sciences (Brazil) train with NICHD investigators as well for the Future Researchers Program. Since 2016, up to three students on an annual basis completed a research rotation with NICHD. The Fellows Recruitment Incentive Award (FRIA) continues to support investigators who recruit postdocs from populations traditionally underrepresented in science, and these investigators also exhibit superior mentoring ability and demonstrate a commitment to the career development and academic progress of their fellows. There are currently three fellows in the FRIA program, one of which joined this year, and two FRIA alumni have started careers in science administration at Indian Health Service and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The alumni of our NICHD Developing Scholars program, in its 10th year, has expanded to 19 individuals; eight scholars are currently either in medical or graduate school and four are in medical resident education programs across the US. Two of our alumni scholars have completed their masters degrees with one pursuing a career in public health and the other in biomedical industry. In addition, four new postbacs have joined the program in 2020. The Developing Scholars program focuses on providing trainees with a customized academic and professional development plan that includes exposure to intramural activities and resources as well as supporting their career advancement. Lastly, the NICHD Connection monthly newsletter continues its focus on mentoring, careers, and academic support programs for young scientists, publishing its 124th issue in September 2020 and reaching all members of the intramural division and our alumni.