- Mentoring Roundup: What to Consider When Selecting a Research Mentor
New trainees are often advised to find a “good mentor.” But what makes a “good mentor” and how do you determine if someone fulfills those qualities? Are the characteristics of a “good mentor” the same for each trainee? What expectations should a mentee have of their mentor and ...
- Navigating Academic Relationships
The bedrock of any good relationship – whether academic or otherwise – is clear communication and aligning expectations. When clear communication is not established, it can lead to isolation, stalemates, and even conflict, but in all instances, it negatively impacts productiv...
- Specific Aims Part 1 – The Problem
Unless you are totally new to NIH grants, you already know that the specific aims page is the most important page of the entire grant. The specific aims page sets the tone for the grant. Will the grant be easy to read and understandable, or dense and frustrating? Unlike you and y...
- Teaching Tips Roundup
For most, the academic year begins next month, and teachers are gearing up for the first day of class. Start well with these essays, tutorials, and suggestions:
Build a Great Syllabus
How Do I Create an Effective Syllabus? - Instructions for making your syllabus approachabl...
- Triggering Shame vs. Stimulating Curiosity
Obviously, our goal in teaching is to help students move from ignorance to acquiring the knowledge, skills, and abilities that will help them make a positive impact on the world and bring them personal success. When a learner doesn’t move rapidly from a state of ignorance to a...
- Grant funding strategy: Which grants to apply for?
With so many funding opportunities, choosing which grant to apply for can be hard to know. This is an especially important consideration for early-career scientists. Grants are time-consuming to write, but are important for getting the funding needed to complete your research.
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- Diversify Your Funding Portfolio
By Rebecca Helton and Raymond D. Blind
Just like a retirement portfolio, a wise strategy to maintain your research funding is to diversify. You never know how funding priorities at agencies will change, so the more baskets holding your eggs the better. You can do this both wit...
- Overheard at Ground Level: Fresh Brewed Mentoring
Vanderbilt's Edge for Scholars hosts weekly Zoom office hours, called Ground Level, with senior mentors and leadership. Discussions range from advice for grant writing and publishing, study design, tenure/promotion, managing a lab, and more. We collected pearls from these discuss...
- What the F? Advice for Fellowship Applicants from Reviewers. Part 3
In the final post of this three part series, I share insight from a dozen faculty who review NRSA fellowship applications on the mentor’s role in the application, metrics used to assess the strength of an applicant, who to ask to write letters, and interacting with your PO post s...
- What the F? Advice for Fellowship Applicants from Reviewers. Part 2
In this three part series, I share advice received when I asked a dozen faculty from my institution who review fellowship applications what they look for in a strong application. Part 1 discussed when to submit and logistics around submitting an easily reviewable document. Part 3...
