Education

The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute (MCHDI) currently has multiple trainees including post-doctoral, MD/PhD, PhD, and MD candidates, and others who work under our faculty. Our Institute and Principal Investigators are strongly invested in your future. The Institute offers a number of events and resources, providing a platform where you may connect with other trainees. Please visit this page often to make sure you are always apprised of the latest updates.

Trainee Resources and Programs

We offer the resources and support to nurture your growth and development as a pre- or post-doctoral researcher or student.

MCHDI Trainee Pilot Grant Program

The MCHDI pilot grants will support up to two new trainee pilot projects for one year in the amount of $10,000. These grants are intended to support innovative basic, clinical, or translational research for postdoctoral fellows or PhD/MD-PhD students currently training under the direction of MCHDI members. The purpose of the program is to support early career scientists in pursuing an independently funded research project that is separate from their ongoing projects under their current Principal Investigator/mentor. Successful applications are required to:

a) demonstrate that they can achieve independence and will generate preliminary data that could lead to career development or other grants and b) be relevant to children’s health.

The 2024 deadlines are outlined below:

Young Investigators Competition

This yearly competition is held in conjunction with our MCHDI annual retreat during the fall semester. It is open to pre-doctoral trainees (graduate/medical), post-doctoral trainees (post-docs, senior research associates, etc.) and students. To apply, you must submit a 250-word abstract, and we choose three finalists for each of our pre-doctoral and post-doctoral divisions. Finalists must give a 15-minute presentation at the retreat, and we select one winner for each division. Winners receive an award certificate and gift prize.

Child Health Research Seminars

The Child Health Research Seminar series is co-hosted by the Department of Pediatrics and the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute. The purpose of this series is to highlight current and ongoing child health research from internal and visiting researchers as an opportunity to enrich the scientific community at Mount Sinai. The series consists of didactic seminars and practical workshops developed to appeal to researchers interested in research areas including diabetes, allergy/asthma, cardiovascular outcomes and neurodevelopmental diseases.

We also include topics applicable to all research such as approaches for consortium-based research, the use of technology and apps to engage community based participatory research, and tools for generating figures to visualize research results. The CHRS series takes place most Tuesday's at noon during the Spring and Fall semester.

GrantForward

We use a pre-award funding database, GrantForward, which has a comprehensive list of federal, foundation, and other funding sources. It features a user-friendly search interface that allows you to filter by sponsor, grant, or applicant type. As a user, you can set up saved search results and automatic email alerts at desired frequencies. GrantForward will also generate a list of recommended grants based on your researcher profile and interests. If you are a member of MCHDI, you may contact the Administrative Director, Elena Lum, at elena.lum@mssm.edu to create an account.