Office of Education

The Office designed, delivered, and/or coordinated twenty-two professional development workshops for intramural fellows. Programming addressed a broad range of career development needs, including professional writing, job search and interviewing skills, medical and graduate school applications, industry and academic career pathways, professional branding, and grant preparation. Offerings were delivered through in-person, virtual, and full-day immersion formats and frequently featured collaborations with other NIH Institutes and offices, and invited subject-matter experts, including targeted support for NICHD fellows through K99 (Pathway to Independence) cohort and grant-development sessions focusing on transitions to research independence.

The Office provided individual assistance through meetings with NICHD fellows, principal investigators, and staff, as well as prospective trainees exploring options for training at NICHD. Meeting topics ranged from career and professional development, mentoring support, discussion of training opportunities at NICHD, and guidance for training or career transitions.

The NIH-wide TmT (Three-Minute Talks) Competition, now in its eleventh year, is led by the Office and was held in conjunction with 12 other NIH Institutes: NCATS, NEI, NHGRI, NIAID, NIAMS, NICHD, NIDCD, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIEHS, NIMH, and NLM. Jack Waite, BS, a Postbaccalaureate Fellow, represented NICHD at the NIH-wide competition in June and won first place. He is mentored by Investigator Pedro Rocha, PhD, and by Joyce Thompson, PhD, a Postdoctoral Fellow and K99 award recipient in the Unit on Genome Structure and Regulation.

Office staff served on the Inaugural Biophysics Conference Planning Committee, which organized and hosted the first Biophysics Fellows Research Conference on August 28–29, 2025, to showcase biophysics research across the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP). The conference provided a forum for NIH fellows and guest students/trainees to present research and engage with investigators across NIH Institutes and Centers. Committee activities supported cross-Institute scientific exchange and highlighted biophysics research and training opportunities within the IRP.

The 17^th Annual NICHD Division of Intramural Research Mentor of the Year awards were announced at the NICHD Scientific Retreat on September 19, 2025. Sergey L. Leikin, PhD, Senior Investigator in the Section on Physical Biochemistry, received the award in the staff/investigator category. Abhinav Sur, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Unit on Cell Specification and Differentiation, received the award in the postdoctoral fellow category.

On December 9, 2025, the 20^th Annual NICHD Fellows Retreat was held, featuring a keynote presentation by Adam Phillippy, PhD, NHGRI Senior Investigator and Director of the Center for Genomics and Data Science, and a leader in completing the entire telomere-to-telomere human genome. The NICHD DIR Scientific Director, Chris McBain, spoke to provide fellows with his personal insight on how to do great science. Fellows then engaged in networking and skills-building workshops.

The Office continued to maintain its suite of trainee-tracking and assessment tools in 2025. These include: the online Annual Progress Review (APR) system for postdoctoral fellows, which supports monitoring of scientific and career development and provides data for mentoring assessments during Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) site visits; the Individual Development Plan and Annual Progress Report system for NICHD postbaccalaureate fellows; and an online fellows exit survey designed to assess training experiences, track career outcomes, and inform continuous program improvement. In addition, the Office continued to update its comprehensive NICHD alumni database (2008–present).

The Office manages and supports several programs designed to promote grant-writing skills and awareness. In addition to grant-writing workshop sessions and guidance provided during individual meetings with fellows, we promote funding-source awareness by maintaining a compiled list of organizations that accept grant applications from NIH intramural fellows. Four intramural fellows received the FY25 Intramural Research Fellowship (IRF) award, supporting the goal of promoting grant writing and enhancing awareness of the various components of the NIH grant application and submission process. The Office also supported the launch of the FY26 Early Career Funding Opportunity Program, which is aimed at promoting grant writing and research training for early-stage intramural researchers in the basic, clinical, and translational sciences. Furthermore, 13 NICHD fellows received the NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence (FARE) during the FY2026 competition.

The Office continues to support fellows who were selected as part of the NICHD Fellows Recruitment Incentive Award (FRIA) and the Developing Talent Scholars Program, which focus on recruitment and customized academic and professional development experiences. The alumni group of these programs includes over 30 individuals who have gone on to pursue training in medicine, biomedical research, occupational therapy, and public health.

NICHD maintains strong inter-institutional collaborations that expand research training and mentoring opportunities across national and international partners. The DIR partnership with Howard University continues to offer research, training, and mentoring opportunities in which Honors Biology students from the College of Arts and Sciences are paired with NICHD investigators to develop and execute research projects from their sophomore through senior years. Additional inter-institutional partnerships for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students are supported through appropriate mechanisms such as the NIH Graduate Partnership Program (GPP) or the Academic Internship Program (AIP). Plans are under way to recruit trainees for the 2026 NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP).

The NICHD Connection monthly newsletter continues its focus on mentoring, careers, and academic support programs for young scientists, publishing its 180^th issue in August, 2025, and reaching all members of the intramural division.