The School of Medicine’s Office for Faculty Mentoring, led by Mark Dewhirst, DVM, PhD, Associate Dean for Faculty Mentoring, launched the Academy of Mentors in the summer of 2014. This new academy provides a platform for senior faculty mentors in the School of Medicine to support junior faculty members as they embark on one of the greatest challenges to establishing oneself in a research field—obtaining independent funding.
The Academy of Mentors is a standing study section that reviews draft grant applications of junior faculty members who are participating in the Path to Independence Program and K Club. The Path to Independence Program and K Club are grant writing programs sponsored by the Office for Faculty Mentoring and are aimed at helping junior faculty submit his or her first NIH grant.
Three times per year, preceding NIH submission cycles, specific Academy mentors are selected to review and discuss junior faculty RPG and K grant applications. An internal review study section is conducted over four hours using an NIH study section format and NIH review criteria. During this time, grant applicants learn about the peer review process. Afterwards, Academy mentors provide individual coaching to the junior faculty applicants and answer questions that applicants may have about their review. This study section review style was piloted in August, and the Academy reviewed its first round of grant applications in December.
Academy mentors are selected based on their scientific renown and mentorship strengths. They are chosen because of their previous participation as a mentor in the Path to Independence Program and K Club programs and because of their commitment to mentoring junior faculty. While membership is by invitation only, faculty members are recruited year-round. Faculty members interested in joining the Academy should contact the Office for Faculty Mentoring for more information. http://medschool.duke.edu/faculty-mentoring
The Office for Faculty Mentoring is part of the School of Medicine’s Office for Faculty Development, led by Vice Dean Ann Brown, MD. For more information about programs and services offered by the Office for Faculty Development and Office for Faculty Mentoring, visit: http://medschool.duke.edu/faculty/office-faculty-development
Current members of the Academy of Mentors
Manal Abdelmalek, MD
Hayden Bosworth, PhD
Ashley Chi, MD, PhD
Lesley Curtis, PhD
Bastiaan Driehuys, PhD
Michael Gunn, MD
Scott Kollins, PhD
Andrzej Kosinski, PhD
QiJing Li, PhD
Isaac Lipkus, PhD
Doug Marchuk, PhD
Jeffrey Marks, PhD
Bernard Mathey-Prevot, PhD
Patricia Moorman, PhD, MSPH
Mark Oldham, PhD
John Perfect, MD
Richard Premont, PhD
Greg Samsa, PhD
Greg Sempowski, PhD
Sudha Shenoy, PhD
Marc Sommer, PhD
Herman Staats, PhD
Corrine Voils, PhD
Kent Weinhold, PhD
Tso-Pang Yao, PhD