The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the special challenges facing early-career faculty who are balancing family caregiving responsibilities with building their biomedical research careers. Now, new funding from national nonprofits and internal resources will help support selected U-M Medical School faculty facing this situation.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in concert with the American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the John Templeton Foundation, has announced that Michigan Medicine was selected as one of 22 academic medical institutions to receive funds from a new $12.1 million COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists.
The Taubman Institute and the U-M Medical School will match the funds to create a mentoring program and provide $100,000 in funding to nine early-career faculty members who will be chosen through an application process in coming months.
Julie Lumeng, MD, will serve as director of the fund. Dr. Lumeng is a professor of pediatrics and associate dean for research at the U-M Medical School, and executive director of the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research.
Taubman Emerging Scholar Kanakadurga Singer, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and physiology, and Sonya Jacobs, chief organizational learning officer for the university and the senior director for faculty and leadership development at the medical school, will serve as co-directors, overseeing the implementation of the faculty development and mentoring program for awardees.
