Mentoring Program

Mentoring Program

The Academy of Aphasia has always fostered a strong environment to encourage the participation of junior and student investigators. We are proud to announce that the Academy has been awarded a grant that will allow us to extend the mentoring program.

Starting 2018, a NIDCD sponsored R13 conference grant (R13 DC017375-01), awarded to the Academy of Aphasia (PI: Swathi Kiran), brings experts/pioneers of specific approaches from a variety of scientific disciplines together with aphasia researchers at a common venue.

Now in its seventh year, the NIDCD-funded Academy of Aphasia conference grant (R13 DC017375) will sponsor selected student fellows to attend and present their work at the conference. Fellows will also receive focused mentoring from seasoned faculty mentors at the meeting. Both U.S. and international students are eligible to apply; please contact Swathi Kiran (kirans@bu.edu) or Heather Dial (hrdial@central.uh.edu) with inquiries. The grant also sponsors a state-of-the-art New Frontiers in Aphasia Research seminar. This year's topic will focus on cortical tracking of speech and language processing, and the speaker will be Dr. Andrea E. Martin of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Dr. Martin is a Research Group Leader in Language and Computation in Neural Systems, as well as a principal investigator at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging. Her scientific research focuses on how symbolic computation is realized in the brain, with a specific interest in rhythmic computation (neural oscillations) and parallels between the human brain and artificial neural networks.

Click here to see a list of the 2023 NIDCD mentees.

NIDCD SPONSORED MENTORING PROGRAM FOR JUNIOR INVESTIGATORS:

In 2024, the Academy meeting will follow a hybrid format. Platform speakers will be required to attend onsite. All posters will be presented virtually: onsite attendees may additionally present in person. If you are traveling to Philadelphia for the meeting, the NIDCD award cover your travel and conference registration expenses (up to $1200). If you plan to present a poster, the NIDCD award will cover your conference registration expenses. The NIDCD sponsored program of the Academy of Aphasia includes the following components:

Selection of program fellows

First-author students and post-docs will be eligible to apply for an Academy of Aphasia Young Investigator Fellowship. They will be required to write and submit a 500-word essay on their career goals in the field of aphasia. Based on review by the NIDCD conference committee, up to twenty selected students will receive a fellowship and a travel award to attend the annual meeting. These young investigator fellows (mentees) will be paired with a mentor, a senior researcher whose research interests overlap with that of the fellow. Mentors visit their mentee’s poster/presentation and discuss their research and other issues pertaining to pursuing an academic-research career.

Mentor-Mentee lunch

All fellowship mentees and their mentors will attend a lunch session to provide a forum for paired discussion of topics relevant to new investigators, including developing a programmatic line of research, obtaining external funds to support research, developing research collaborations, productivity, securing academic positions, balancing research and teaching, and navigating the tenure process. Mentors will describe their academic/research history and trajectory and provide their perspectives on the aforementioned topics. The mentees will be asked to identify one professional goal that will be achieved over the course of the year (e.g., publication of a paper, completion of dissertation, job search). Over the course of the year, the mentee will receive advice from his/her mentor on achieving that goal.

Meet the Experts session

All young investigator fellows, other students/post-docs attending the conference, and three volunteer mentors who will serve as moderators will join the Frontiers in Aphasia seminar speakers as part of an Equity in Science panel session. Experts will be asked to talk about their academic/professional journey and important issues related to equity in science. Mentees are required to attend this session.

New Frontiers in Aphasia Research

A one hour seminar (New Frontiers in Aphasia Research) on a topic that is state of the art in the field. Mentees are required to attend this session.

Application Procedures

  1. To submit your application for the NIDCD fellowship, click on the link here. (Updated: 28/03/24)
  2. To be eligible to apply for this fellowship, the applicant must be a first author on a platform, symposium talk or poster submitted to the conference.
  3. Notifications for acceptances will sent out along with the notifications for abstract submissions.