NIH Renews UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellows Program
July 5, 2017
Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has renewed funding for the UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellows Program. This five-year grant (2017-2022) supports mentored training at 16 affiliated sites in low and middle-income countries. All are affiliated with at least one of the UJMT consortium’s four U.S. institutions: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University, Morehouse School of Medicine and Tulane University.
The coordinating center is based at the UNC Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases and directed by Benjamin Chi, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UNC. Other institutional directors include Yuka Manabe, Johns Hopkins University; Kofi Kondwani, Morehouse School of Medicine; and Pierre Buekens, Tulane University.
The fellowship has a successful track record in training the next generation of global health researchers, both from the United States and abroad. Over its first five years, the program supported 132 doctoral and postdoctoral trainees. Over half of the postdoctoral fellows have taken academic positions after completing the program. Many have successfully competed for research funding, including from the NIH, to become independently funded investigators.
The program will receive approximately $1 million from the NIH to support 18 trainees in the 2017-2018 academic year. Of these, nine are doctoral students and nine are postdoctoral fellows; five are foreign nationals working at one of the consortium’s affiliated sites. View all trainees and sites.
Awardees from the UNC include: Matthew Painschab, MD (Malawi) Chifundo Zimba, Ph.D. (Malawi), Adria Spinelli, Ph.D. candidate (Peru), Austin Oberlin, MD candidate (South Africa), Rebecca Berhanu, MD (South Africa), Amy Huber, Ph.D. (South Africa), and Katelyn Rittenhouse, MD candidate (Zambia).
Trainees receive stipend as well as travel and research funding as part of their 12-month appointment, where they conduct research at an established international site. They are mentored by experts across a wide range of scientific areas and disciplines, including HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases, emerging infections, cancers, mental health, neurologic disorders, and women’s health.
Funding in 2017-2018 will come from different instituted/centers within the NIH, including the Fogarty International Center; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Institute of Nursing research, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
More information about the program can be found at http://globalhealth.unc.edu/ujmt-fogarty-global-health-fellowship/. The application deadline for the 2018-2019 class is Dec. 1, 2017