Multidisciplinary Engineering and Renal Research for Innovation of Technology Fellowship (MERRIT)
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with The Cooper Union, offers a training program for engineering students in hopes to promote advances in the development of new technologies and therapeutics for treatment of kidney disease. Our fellowship brings together nephrology researchers and engineering educators to teach the next generation of engineers the skills that can eradicate kidney disease. These skills are gained working alongside researchers who are addressing cutting-edge problems.
This 10-week, paid summer undergraduate research program pairs our engineering students with one of the 17 kidney research labs within Mount Sinai Health System’s Division of Nephrology in New York City. Our program serves as an education and research pipeline for engineering students to study the development of new technologies for nephrology and to encourage the pursuit of academic careers in kidney research. Our MERRIT Fellowship is for undergraduate or master’s students who have declared a major in engineering.
Our Mission
Our goal is to create solutions for people who suffer from kidney disease by connecting engineering students to the top talent in the field of nephrology and preparing them with the knowledge needed to make meaningful contributions.
Program Overview
Our program, which features training in our array of nephrology research labs, allows for pursuit of a variety of foci in your research area of interest. It offers:
- Mentorship to patient-centered design teams
- Fully-funded individual summer research projects
- Digital educational content
Our array of nephrology research labs allows for pursuit of a variety of foci in your research area of interest. The Division of Nephrology research labs participating in the program are offering varying concentrations that range from immunology to tissue engineering. Some labs focus on specific diseases (e.g., polycystic kidney disease) while others are more clinical (e.g., development of an artificial intelligence pipeline to process renal pathology images) or translational (e.g., discovery of new urinary biomarkers).
Program Structure
The program includes one formal class on Responsible Conduct of Research, along with several didactic programs some of which that are jointly administered with other summer research programs at Mount Sinai. These include cutting-edge technological seminars, research presentations, and journal clubs, where research papers will be discussed. Here you can view a sample of our curriculum.
At the close of the fellowship, each student will participate in the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at Mount Sinai where they will present their findings to the entire Department of Medicine faculty and external collaborators.
The MERRIT Program is supported in part by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the NIH. This program does not grant academic credits.
Fellowship Life
This full-time fellowship includes free housing near the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, for the entire duration of the program. The 2022 stipend for the 10-week fellowship is $6,000. You will receive your stipend as a single paycheck before the end of July. The program is full-time, from 9 am to 5 pm every day.
Read about our most recent fellows.
Find out more about our resident life, and commonly asked questions here.
How to Apply
To apply to the MERRIT Fellowship, you must be an undergraduate engineering student with a declared major or a master’s student currently enrolled at an accredited engineering program. All engineering sub-disciplines are welcome.
Selection for the engineering program is competitive. We accept three to six students each year.
Online applications are due February 15.
You can apply through the Mount Sinai MERRIT Application Portal.