Research Management Group– (RMG)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
International Student Research Fellowships

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***Limited funding opportunity for international pre-doctoral students (see eligibility)--- an internal selection process is required first within each school*, and then at the central university level.***

The internal deadline has passed- this is for your reference only.

See revised School of Medicine Dean's Office tuition shortfall coverage for eligbile bioscience and bioengineering PhD programs. more >>

Timeline:
Internal School of Medicine* Deadline: Mon., Oct. 13, 2014, 5 p.m. (see the internal submission guidelines below)
Top seven nominee proposals from each school to be submitted to VPGE internal review committee: Nov. 7, 2014
University submission of candidate names to HHMI: Nov. 18, 2014
Candidates submit their completed applications to HHMI: Feb. 12, 2015

 


Contacts for other schools:
To download the HHMI program brochure and for contacts from other schools, see the VPGE webpage >>

CROSS-SCHOOL NOMINATION PROCESS

Each of those schools will canvas their graduate programs, and may select a limited number of candidates for consideration for this fellowship. Recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of many of our students' programs, we will use the following selection groundrules:


Eligibility
Students who are being nominated for these awards must:


# of applicants permitted:

Stanford University has been invited to nominate 10 international doctoral students for HHMI International Student Research Fellowships. HHMI introducted this program five years ago and they again expect to make a total of approximately 50 awards; each will consist of three years of stipend support, plus partial tuition support.

For the internal selection process, each school will be able to nominate 7 proposals to forward to the second and final phase of the selection process at the VPGE (Vice Provost for Graduate Education Office).


Previous recipients:
3 Stanford recipients 2011 more >>
4 Stanford recipients 2012 more >>
5 Stanford recipients 2013 more >>
4 Stanford recipients 2014 more >>



Award Information:
HHMI will award three-year fellowships. For the 2015-16 year, the HHMI annual stipend will be $30,000, plus an allowance of $3,000 which may be used for insurance and health costs, books, supplies, and related support. HHMI will also provide an annual institutional allowance of $10,000 in partial payment of tuition and fees. Support for years 2 and 3 support is contingent on appropriate research and academic progress, and will not be provided beyond the fifth year of a student’s doctoral program.

The HHMI stipend is defined as support for 12 months each year, and HHMI requires that their fellows work full-time on research throughout the year. However, HHMI does not require full-time enrollment in summer quarter. HHMI fellows at Stanford must be enrolled for all four quarters while receiving the HHMI fellowship, but, where appropriate, they may reduce their summer quarter units. See further discussion, below, regarding tuition shortfalls and additional financial support.

Tuition Shortfall/ Supplemental Support / Other Funding Restrictions
HHMI will permit host institutions to supplement the Fellow’s stipend. However, fellows are generally not allowed to be employed (HHMI will permit an assistantship of up to 25%, consistent with Stanford's policies regarding supplementing full fellowships). HHMI Fellows may not receive significant funds from any external fellowship, scholarship or similar program. Schools should not therefore nominate individuals who hold continuing Fulbright fellowships or other signifcant external awards.

As with some other national fellowships, this award will not fund the full cost of Stanford tuition and fees. Programs submitting nominations for this award must understand and agree that the fellow will not be charged for the tuition and fees shortfall.

In order to nominate a Stanford student for this fellowship, the student’s faculty advisor must agree to provide funding for the tuition and fees shortfall, and this must be described in the nomination materials being provided to the VPGE office. If the student will be funded on a supplemental assistantship (up to 25% FTE), those funds can only be used to provide salary and a tuition allowance - the student cannot be required to use that money to pay other university fees. If additional support is needed, the faculty member will have to either pay the balance from his or her own unrestricted resources, or identify other resources from within the department or school. With the exception of the Cardinal Care subsidy and support for SGF Fellows (see below), no central university funds will be provided to support HHMI fellows.

SGF Fellows:
The HHMI fellowship may be combined with a Stanford Graduate Fellowship (SGF) provided the fellow is already budgeted for 4 quarters of support for the first year of the fellowship (2015-2016). For those Fellows, the SGF will supplement both stipend and tuition to the level of the SGF or provide full SGF support through Summer Quarter of the fifth year of graduate studies.

School of Medicine Dean's Office Tuition Shortfall Coverage

Please note that there was an error in the September 18, 2014 announcement, which indicated that the School of Medicine’s commitment to cover tuition shortfalls. All Biosciences HHMI fellows will be covered in full for the current year, if they have not yet reached their 5th year, since the school has committed to cover all student costs for students in years 1-4. BioEngineering students will be covered the same as in prior years, at the rate of $7736 per year.”

The advisor must identify funds that will be used to supplement the stipend provided by HHMI ($30,000) to the applicable department rate; in cases where the student would normally be covered by program or school funds in the SoM, those funds will be used instead of funds from the advisor.

 

Internal Submission Guidelines

For the School of Medicine only (see the contacts for other schools above >>)

By Monday, Oct. 13, 2014, 5 p.m., individual candidates please submit the following in one PDF file* to:
Jeanne Heschele
Research Management Group
jheschele@stanford.edu
650-245-2351

*Students: Each of the following (title page, #1, #2, #3, #6, #7) should be prepared as individual pages in Microsoft Word. Once you are completed with all of those sections and arranged them in the order listed below (except for the letters**), they should be incorporated into one PDF file and sent to Jeanne. File name: Last name_HHMI.pdf

**Faculty advisors: The two required confidential letters must be sent separately to Jeanne. (#4- nomination letter from your faculty advisor letter and #5-the additional one page letter from the advisor (#5) addressed to HHMI International Student Research Fellowship Review Committee Members.   File name: Nominee Last name_HHMI_Letter.pdf

Title page
HHMI International Student Research Fellowships
Dissertation Research Project title:
Year you started your Ph.D. program:
Name and contact information of the candidate, title, department, address, email
Name of dissertation advisor, title, department, contact information

1. A  two-page summary of the student’s dissertation research activity, emphasizing the significance and innovation of the intended research. (Single-spaced)

2. A list of publications and presentations with [brief descriptions of] the student's role in the publication described.

3. The student's curriculum vitae (CV).

4. A letter of recommendation from the dissertation advisor, printed on your department's letterhead
addressed to Dr. Peter Sarnow and the School of Medicine Awards Committee**, and signed by your dissertation advisor). There are no page limits to the recommendation letter. This letter must give evidence of the candidate’s exceptional talent as a scientific leader and innovator. (Note: this letter #4 is for internal review committee use only and will not be used for the final application packets.)
THE LETTER MUST BE CONFIDENTIAL. PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ADVISOR TO SCAN HIS/HER ORIGINAL LETTER AND SEND THE PDF FILE CONTAINING THE LETTER DIRECTLY TO JEANNE HESCHELE IN THE RESEARCH MANAGEMENT GROUP AT JHESCHELE@STANFORD.EDU BY THE OCT. 13th 4 P.M. DEADLINE.

5. A one-page letter from the student's advisor which will be forwarded to HHMI when Stanford submits the information on it's 10 selected nominees. (Therefore, please print this on your letterhead, address this one page letter to the HHMI International Research Student Fellowship Internal Review Committee members and sign)
THIS LETTER MUST BE CONFIDENTIAL, PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ADVISOR TO SCAN HIS/HER ORIGINAL LETTER AND SEND THE PDF FILE CONTAINING THE LETTER DIRECTLY TO JEANNE HESCHELE IN THE RESEARCH MANAGEMENT GROUP AT JHESCHELE@STANFORD.EDU BY THE OCT. 13th 4 P.M. DEADLINE.
This letter must contain:

  • a brief description of why the student was nominated for the HHMI International Student Fellowship program specifically addressing the student's potential to be a scientific leader and innovator
  • a commitment to supplement the tuition shortfall for the duration of the fellow's PhD program. Detail the source of funds (institution, department, thesis advisor, or other source) that will be committed to supplementing the HHMI fellowship funds for tuition.

6. ***New requirement this year***personal statement reflecting career goals in relation to the applicant’s thesis work and how the fellowship will affect attainment of the goals.

7. The student's unofficial Stanford graduate transcript.

 

The final phase of the selection process:

The School of Medicine Awards Committee members will select 7 proposals to be forwarded to the VPGE review committee by the Nov. 7th.

A faculty review group will identify a final list of 10 nominations to forward to HHMI by Nov. 18th. In making the final selection, Stanford will consider the competitiveness of each application, and will follow the HHMI recommendation to submit a diverse set of nominees in terms of gender, country of citizenship, research area, and departmental/program affiliation and that there will be no preference to HHMI laboratories/investigators/early career scientists.

HHMI will then provide the individual applicants with information about completing the online application – including instructions for recommenders to upload their own reference letters into an online system.

Stanford Medicine Resources:

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