Faculty Scholar Award application deadline nears
Funds help junior faculty balance academic and research demands with family life
By Ellie Castano
UMass Medical School Communications | July 7, 2011 |
The Office of Faculty Affairs is now accepting applications for the UMMS Faculty Scholar Award program, which aids junior faculty in pursuing their research and scholarly activities while juggling family responsibilities. The award provides funding of up to $30,000 per year to support personnel, services, supplies or “buy out” of clinical time to provide opportunity for academic work. The deadline to apply is Friday, July 15.
Research on faculty advancement and retention has shown that heavy responsibilities for family care can impede the progress of talented junior faculty in meeting career goals, according to Luanne Thorndyke, MD, vice provost for faculty affairs. Rather than pay for child care or other family support services, the funding is an investment in the research and scholarship of the applicant and can only be used for professional expenses that would be allowed by an external funding agency, such as the National Institutes of Health, she said.
The inaugural awardees were Nancy Byatt, DO, assistant professor of psychiatry; Susanne Muehlschlegel, MD, assistant professor of neurology, anesthesiology and surgery; and Jill Zitzewitz, PhD, research associate professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology.
The program was created by the UMMS Women’s Faculty Committee and the Women’s Leadership Work Group, and is funded jointly by UMMS, UMass Memorial Health Care and the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science. The awards are open to UMMS faculty, both women and men at the assistant or associate professor level, and are funded for one year, with the option of a no-cost, one-year extension. Four awards will be available for the current academic year.
For additional information and application materials, contact the Office of Faculty Affairs at
Faculty.Affairs@umassmed.edu
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