Grant Peer Review Board
Fellows' Career Development
Grant Peer Review Board
Fellows' Career Development
The Fellow’s Scientific Grant Peer Review Board is a cohort of fellows who are focused on improving their grantsmanship skills by participating in confidential peer-to-peer feedback on grants. Fellows can either participate as “writers” and/or “reviewers” in a formalized workshop setting, gaining important editing and grantsmanship skills. While reviewers make up the majority of the cohort, most reviewers use what they learn when they go on to write their own grants or fellowships. To round out their experience, writers are expected to participate as reviewers for at least two cohorts.
To balance the diverse scientific expertise of fellows, each cohort is unique to the needs of the writers and includes workshops and seminars presented by intramural and extramural speakers. Experienced participants can present “how-to’s” on grantsmanship topics to practice teaching skills. The majority of grants written by fellows include the NIGMS PRAT, K99/R00, and K22, but anyone and everyone is welcome, including those planning for R0-style grants.
Sample Agenda for a Cohort
Week Activity
- Cohort welcome, outline of group, assessment of cohort composition
- How to write a stellar Specific Aims page
- "Nuts and Bolts of Submitting an NIH Grant" with Tammy R. Collins, Ph.D.
- Peer Workshop: FARE Awards (Spring Cohort)
- Round Table Review: specific aims, confidential review of successful grants
- No meeting, send your specific aims to your Program Officers
- No meeting
- Round Table Review: Aim 1
- No meeting
- Send your Research Plan to your reviewers
- Training Plan overview
- No meeting
- Send Research Plan to NCI fellows review board for grammar edits
- Round Table Review: Training Plan
- Workshop and review of other key documents
- No meeting
- Submit early! Schedule an appointment with Tammy R. Collins, Ph.D. to submit your grant
Program Leaders
Laura Kammel, Ph.D., Co-chair, 2021 - Present, IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow
Laura joined NIEHS in March 2020, two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced research at the institute to come to halt. As many researchers attempted to use this unexpected work-from-home time to focus more on grant writing and research program development, Laura realized how valuable it would be to have a sense of community to help motivate, answer questions, and provide feedback during this process. Grant writing can be overwhelming, but we hope this workshop provides NIEHS trainees a framework to put together their best applications in a supportive environment.
Saniya Rattan, Ph.D., Co-chair, 2019 - Present, IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow
In 2019, Saniya joined NIEHS and immediately recognized the benefits of a Fellow’s Scientific Grant Peer Review Board. With the help of Cassandra, Saniya helps organize the formalized workshops.
Cassandra Hayne, Ph.D., Founder and Chair, 2017 - 2020, IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow
When Cassandra arrived at NIEHS in 2017, she was writing a grant and recognized a need for a cohort of fellows who wanted to help each other improve their grant writing skills through peer review and workshops. To fill this need, Cassandra started the Fellow’s Scientific Grant Peer Review Board which she evolved from an organized peer-pairing review process into a more formal workshop series.
Hear From Program Participants
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