BWF Postdoctoral Career Awards at the Scientific Interface: Insider Tips for Writing a Successful Application

Postdocs often seek awards providing independent funding and financial support to facilitate the transition to faculty. Career Awards at the Scientific Interface (CASI), offered by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF; headquartered in RTP), presents an award that provides $560,000 over five years to bridge advanced postdoctoral training and the first three years of faculty service. BWF recently enhanced their CASI awards with increased postdoctoral stipend levels ($80,000-$85,000), and assistance to offset childcare expenses (up to $5,000/year).

This award is targeted to scientists trained in the physical, computational, mathematical, and engineering sciences who are applying these approaches to answer biological questions. Awards are open to non-US citizens from all countries and awardees may conduct their research at US or Canadian institutions. BWF strongly encourages persons from groups historically underrepresented in the sciences to apply.

In this Zoom session, Dr Tammy Collins, Program Officer at BWF and Duke PhD, will give an overview of the CASI program and provide tips for writing a competitive application by understanding what reviewers are looking for. Additionally, you will learn about some of the flexibilities and advantages of philanthropic funding, and we will briefly compare and contrast CASI with the K99/R00.

Speaker: Tammy Collins, PhD, is a Program Officer at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF), a nonprofit philanthropic organization whose mission is to nurture a diverse group of leaders in biomedical sciences to improve human health. At BWF, Collins directs the Career Awards at the Scientific Interface (CASI) program and the Innovations in Regulatory Science Awards (IRSA). Prior to joining BWF, she was the Director of the Office of Fellows' Career Development at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).