CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES
CEHS provides career development and enrichment for members. We use multiple approaches to support development of environmental health scientists at all career stages, which are tracked continuously and evaluated annually.
Junior Faculty Recruitment and Awards
CEHS was able to provide five faculty recruitment or retention funds in the current cycle. CEHS also supports the New Environmental Health Sciences Innovator Initiative (PDF) to support promising junior faculty for career development training and travel. These Innovator awards provide $10,000 in financial support for a career development plan reviewed by senior faculty mentors, and include funds for pilot data, pursuit of the supplemental training, or speaker invitations with key collaborators.
CEHS Recruitment/ Retention, Diversity and Inclusion
CEHS leadership proactively identifies candidates internally and externally by working with department chairs. With institutional support, we will commit $50,000 per year for support of startup packages to recruit faculty in environmental health. Retention funds are provided to two highly valued mid-level faculty. Selection of these scholars for recruitment and retention support occurs in the CEHS Executive Committee, in collaboration with Chairs or Directors of their home academic units. Underrepresented minorities represent 50% of our recruitment awards and all recruited faculty are part of our talent and leadership development plan through inclusion on our Internal Advisory Committee.
Mock Study Sections and Aims Reviews
For CEHS-affiliated post-docs (in the member labs), junior faculty preparing individual K or R grants, and multidisciplinary teams applying for program project funding, we convene mock study sections with senior faculty who have NIH study section experience. We provide rapid, focused reviews of aims pages and applications by recruiting senior, external investigators (through paid honoraria). Investigators receive technical assistance through our Grant Incubator Program, which supports the progression of completed pilots to submitted applications.
For assistance, please visit Request CEHS Services.
Mentoring by Senior Investigators
Effective academic mentoring involves multiple distinct activities and skills, requires periodic reassessment or evaluation, and is best accomplished by mentoring teams rather than individuals. Research Directors perform outreach to all junior faculty in their research program areas to identify home department mentoring needs and to add support when needed. CEHS mentoring committees are offered to all junior investigators, with formal meetings at least once a year to review progress and problem-solve for success. The outcomes of mentoring are assessed using short term outcomes such as grants and papers, and longer-term outcomes such as achievement of promotion and tenure.
Scientific Enrichment
A benefit of CEHS membership is access to training, concierge services, and methods development services of our Facility Cores (Table 5). Each of these cores offers outstanding technical support and specialized opportunities for training. Many of these activities are integrated with our seminar series.
Associate Director for Career Development:
Terry Noah, MD, Departments of Pediatric Transplantation and Pediatric Pulmonology
Email: terry_noah@med.unc.edu | Phone: (919) 740-4915
