NRSA POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP (T32)

Interdisciplinary Women’s Reproductive Health Fellowship

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This postdoctoral training program is supported by Grant Number T32HD055163 from the National Institute of Child Health And Human Development at the National Institutes of Health.

Candidacy Requirements

Applicants must be must be a citizen or a noncitizen national of the United States or have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence at the time of appointment. Noncitizen nationals are people, who, although not citizens of the United States, owe permanent allegiance to the United States. They generally are people born in outlying possessions of the United States (e.g., American Samoa and Swains Island). Individuals who have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence must have a currently valid Permanent Resident Card or other legal verification of such status.

Trainees must commit full-time effort, normally defined as 40 hours per week to the program and its related research activities, consonant with NRSA guidelines. Within the full-time training period, research trainees who are also training as clinicians must devote their time to the proposed research training and must confine clinical duties to those that are an integral part of the research training experience.

Research Training Program

A new postdoctoral fellowship in Interdisciplinary Women's Reproductive Health (RHF) at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB) supports five positions for 2-year fellowships that prepare MDs, clinical PhDs, and other postdoctoral scientists for research careers in the area of women's reproductive health. Appointees will be selected from a diverse, competitive candidate pool, with special emphasis on the recruitment of underrepresented minorities. The RHF training program enriches the T32 portfolio at UTMB, as the first of its type dedicated to reproductive health in women. The RHF addresses the training needs of both health care professionals and research scientists by providing a structured but flexible research experience with an emphasis on fostering the early growth of an independent research career. Trainees are incorporated into the investigative programs of three board-certified fellowships in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, a fellowship in women's health in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women's Health, and with individual projects of program faculty in Internal Medicine, Surgery, Preventive Medicine, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. Strong existing collaborative ties among the 16 mentors make this multidisciplinary approach possible. The mentors are well funded, heavily published, and have co-authored and co-mentored for many years. The specific aims of the RHF training program are to (1) increase the quality and quantity of researchers in women's reproductive health by actively recruiting promising postdoctoral fellows from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, including MDs, clinical PhDs, and basic science PhDs; (2) build upon and maintain a supportive infrastructure for women's reproductive health research at UTMB, including strong mentoring, comprehensive research training, and collaborative investigator/mentor networks; and (3) utilize the high-quality curriculum available at UTMB to (a) provide new investigators committed to a research career in women's reproductive health with an educational platform for productive interdisciplinary research and (b) engage them in productive, mentored, and progressively more independent research projects. Regular reviews of individual trainees will be completed by the training program directors to ensure that adequate progress toward the development of an independent research career is made.

Potential Faculty Mentors and Areas of Research

Stipend Level

The NRSA postdoctoral appointment includes a stipend, the federally mandated level of which is determined by the number of years of relevant postdoctoral experience at the time of appointment.

Payback Obligation

During the first 12 months of postdoctoral NRSA support, trainees incur one month of obligation for each month of support, and they must sign a payback agreement acknowledging this obligation at the time of their initial appointment. The 13th and each subsequent month of postdoctoral NRSA support will be considered payback service. Fellows completing a 2-year period under this award will have fulfilled the payback obligation.

Application Process

Application review is ongoing for candidates to fill positions as they become available.

For information, please contact:

Abbey B. Berenson, MD
Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health
Email: abberens@utmb.edu