You are here: Home > Office of Education
Office of Education
- Brenda Hanning, Director, Office of Education
Goals and Objectives
The intramural Office of Education was established in September 2004 to support the needs of intramural scientists, fellows, and students at all levels as they relate to training. This is achieved through recruitment and development of academic support programs; maintenance of accreditation; contributions to mentoring, evaluation, and career guidance; and creation of new training initiatives. Expanded areas of involvement include international exchanges for the training of graduate students, networking among fellows and alumni, grantsmanship and the enhancement of fellows’ competitiveness for awards, as well as support of new tenure-track investigators.
Summary
The Office of Education delivers workshops, programs, and individualized opportunities to a population averaging 350 trainees, including postdoctoral, visiting, and research fellows; clinical fellows and medical students; graduate students; and postbaccalaureate and technical fellows. The activities include, typically, public speaking workshops, job interviewing, writing and editorial services, grantsmanship and study section observerships, career presentations and counseling, teaching opportunities through the NICHD “Becoming an Effective Scientist” course for postbaccalaureate fellows, teaching skills workshops, and management programs. Each spring a retreat for fellows and graduate students is held for 100 people to address scientific developments and careers, which includes fellow presentations and a poster presentation by each attendee. The program is developed and run by a fellow/student steering committee.
Notable accomplishments from the past year include the following: In May 2009, the Division of Intramural Research gave its second Mentor of the Year awards to Thomas Dever, PhD, investigator, and Elizabeth Fozo, PhD, fellow. Two fellows received Diversity Fellowships from NIH’s Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE): Sydella Blatch, PhD, in the laboratory of Karl Pfeifer, was renewed for a second year, and Yvette Pittman, PhD, in the laboratory of Thomas Dever, received an award. Yabin Guo, PhD, in the laboratory of Henry Levin, received an Intramural AIDS Research Fellowship. The Division of Intramural Research’s first K99 was awarded to Wenge Zhu, PhD, in the laboratory of Mel DePamphilis, by the NCI. The first three exchange students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong received their PhDs. An alumni network was established through Linked In and is beginning to accrue members. FARE (Fellows Award for Research Excellence) awards for 2010 went to 27 percent of applicants. A new careers web-based initiative focusing on industry was launched with BioCareers, along with several NIH Institute and Center partners. Nine students were hired for summer 2009 with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds. New programs included management with the University of North Carolina and a leadership series through OITE, as well as a workshop to learn about electronic submissions through Grants.gov. The average scores of all programs for which formal evaluations were conducted was 4.42 on a 5-point scale.
For more information, email hanningb@mail.nih.gov or visit dir.nichd.nih.gov/dirweb/education.html.