Advanced Education Fellowship (Mood Disorders)

Overview

As the burden of mood disorder grows, there is greater need for a cadre of adult, child and geriatric psychiatrists who have postgraduate specialty (fellowship) training in research and treatment relevant to mood disorders. We are most proud of the junior investigators and clinicians skilled in the care and prevention of mood disorders who have been trained within the Center.

In an academic career, the transition from formal training to junior investigator and faculty member status is one of the most challenging. We have a dearth of clinical investigators, especially in complex areas such as neuropsychiatry. The availability of Advanced Educational Fellowships will be critical to this effort. Fellows will be taught, with mentor oversight, the fundamental principles of formulating and focusing a research question and developing a methodology such that they may carry through a project to completion and experience the excitement of doing so.

Advanced educational fellowships are $30,000 for one year (including benefits). In rare circumstances, we will consider 1-year continuations of these fellowships. Fellows will spend approximately one third of their time in academic pursuit, working in tandem with one of the Center’s faculty (supervision, self-study, and didactics). The remainder of the Fellow’s stipend and fringe benefits must be supported by other sources (clinical revenues, other grant funds, and Institute funds).

Evaluation

The progress of career development among fellows will be marked by several academic benchmarks of success:

  • Evidence of ability to build collaborative bridges between center faculty, a process that will be closely monitored by the co-mentor faculty teams.
  • Quality and number of research publications and conference presentations that acknowledge the Center.
  • Pursuing and securing extramural research funding.
  • Competing successfully for full-time academic faculty positions.
Application

Pre-requisites:

Fellows may come from any area represented by the Faculty workgroup, and may be a Ph.D. or an M.D.

Application process:

The application consists of two parts:

  1. A 1-2 page paper that outlines the applicants’ concepts of interest and the extent that these interests bridge across mood disorder sub-disciplines. Explain the project to be conducted and the training one expects to receive during the year-long fellowship interval.
  2. A brief budget that lists the annual salary, the proportion of salary requested for the fellowship stipend, and fringe benefits (up to $30,000 total). Applicants may propose using the funds to pay for a research assistant or other project costs, as long as the items are clearly relevant to the candidate’s training experience and core project. Fellowships cannot be used for general lab expenses unrelated to a specific project.

Typically, between 3 and 4 applicants will be selected who have demonstrated abilities to work within a collaborative team. As noted, training will bridge across centers or labs; hence, at least two mentor faculty will also be identified who will work together as co-mentors to facilitate and enable cross-disciplinary and cross-center integration of the training experience.

The deadline for the next round of Advanced Fellowships is March 15, 2011. We will prioritize the selection of fellowships that are of thematic relevance to the Center as defined by the Working Group interest areas.

Application deadline: 15 Mar 2011

Admin

Coordinator: David Miklowitz, Ph.D.