DOCTORAL STUDENT SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM
CALL FOR LETTER OF INTENT
RSA Doctoral Student Small Grants Program: A total of five (5) MD, PhD, or MD/PhD students will each receive $5,000 to support their projects. Qualified international students are welcome to apply. At least one of these awards will be for support of a diversity applicant’s project. Funding will be for one year, beginning promptly after the application has been awarded; grant period timeline extensions will not be considered.
Early October (1st week) each year, a request for Letters of Intent will be distributed; with a submission deadline of late October (last week).
ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must be sponsored by an RSA regular member (in good standing) and the topic of the proposal must be relevant to the mission of RSA to “provide a forum for communication and career development among alcohol researchers, to attract and support the next generation of alcohol researchers, and to disseminate scientific knowledge regarding alcohol use”. Students that currently have independent research support from NIH (F30 / F31 fellowship or Diversity Administrative Supplements), NSF, or another national organization (e.g., APA minority fellowship), are not eligible to apply for this award. For those with a T32 grant, you may apply but should not budget for additional salary beyond the salary being received from the T32.
SUBMITTING A LETTER OF INTENT:
- The Letter of Intent (LOI) is limited to a single page (file upload as PDF or PDFX) with .5-inch margins and 11-point Arial font, maximum 650-word count. The LOI should include ALL of the following components:
- Descriptive title of the proposed research (suggested word count = 25)
- Name, address, email, and telephone number of the applicant
- Participating institution
- Brief Summary of the proposed research (suggested word count = 400)
- Brief budget justification* (suggested word count = 200)
*Note that funds may not be used to support indirect costs to universities, so applicants should confirm that either a) the university will not charge indirect costs to awardees, or b) the applicant’s unit will cover any indirect costs to the university. Applicants are also encouraged to ask their units for matching funds to provide further support for their project.
- *Confirm that either a) the university will not charge indirect costs to awardees, or b) the applicant’s unit will cover any indirect costs to the university.
- Indicate YES if you have a T32 grant.
- Submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV) to accompany their LOI. File upload as a PDF or PDFX only.
THE INITIAL REVIEW PROCESS: Letters of intent will be reviewed by the RSA small grants program review committee and the most promising applicants (10 or more) will be asked to submit a full (4 page) grant proposal into a new online module. The review criteria for the letters of intent will mirror those used in evaluating the full proposals and the committee will seek to balance funding for pre-clinical and clinical/psychosocial studies.
Previous recipients of this award are:
Jordan Jurinsky
Nadia McLean
Benjamin Shepherd
Sha Neisha Williams
2022 - Youra Moeun
2021 - Hannah Carlon
Dulce Frausto
Ashmita Mukherjee
Melissa Schick
Mallory Stephenson
2020 - Holly Boyle
Yeonhee Cho
Erin Ferguson
Margaret Minnig
2019 - Pratik Adhikari
Molly Bowdring
Julianne Price
Kathryn Przybysz