Presidential Fellowship in Collaborative Neuroscience

The Provost's Office, in collaboration with the UVA Brain Institute, is proud to support the presidential graduate fellowship program to promote cross-Grounds collaborative neuroscience research. 

2025 Deadline: Monday, March 17 at 11:59 pm (EDT)

We seek to bring together neuroscientists from different divisions and UVA Schools (e.g., College of Arts & Sciences, School of Medicine, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences) to tackle important questions and perform transformative work that will differentiate our research enterprise. Projects may be on any subject related to neuroscience. Evidence of prior collaboration is not required, and the creation of new partnerships is encouraged. 

This opportunity is open to current 2nd and 3rd graduate students, and competitive applications will provide evidence that the candidate will be jointly guided in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment on a synergistic project with the potential to generate transformative science. The fellowship will provide $38,000 toward living support, tuition, fees, and/or health insurance for one year. All remaining expenses should be covered by the mentor(s), department, or School, and all fellows will receive $38,000 in living support (wages or stipend) regardless of School. Fellowship awards are not eligible for renewal. Projects that are currently receiving or have within the last two years received Brain Institute support are not eligible for additional funding.

Awarded fellows and their mentors are expected to attend the annual Presidential Fellows in Collaborative Neuroscience event held at both the start and end of their fellowship term. Fellows will deliver a short talk at their end-of-term event. Fellows and mentors will also be asked to participate in Brain Institute events and provide a final report at the completion of the fellowship term. Awarded fellows and their mentors must also submit an individual fellowship proposal to an external funding organization (e.g., NIH F30/F31/F99/K grant, Ford Foundation, or other similar grants from other external agencies) within six months of completion of the fellowship term. Mentors are also expected to participate in future review of program applications.

Application Components:

Candidate (Graduate Student):

1. Specific Aims/Objectives (1 page)
2. Research Strategy/Project Description (2 pages):
   • Scientific Premise: Provide the context for the proposed research training project.
   • Approach: Describe the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses to be used to accomplish the project’s specific aims or objectives.
   • Timeline: Include the planned activities relevant to the research project over fellowship term.
3. Goals & Preparedness Statement (1 page):
   • Overall Training Goals: Describe training goals for the fellowship term, long-term goals for a career in biomedical research workforce, and how the fellowship goals relate to the career goals.
   • Candidate’s Preparedness: Describe the educational, scientific, and professional experiences that prepare the candidate for the proposed project.
4. 1 page to include responses to the following:
   • Scientific Perspective: Explain why this field of science is important and the ways the chosen collaborative research training project will advance the field.
   • How does this project have the potential to enhance UVA’s neuroscience research enterprise?
5. 1 paragraph describing plans to submit an external individual fellowship application including expected timeline and agency.
   1. Note: If ineligible to submit an external individual fellowship, then include 1 paragraph describing any plans to secure additional funding beyond this fellowship.
6. NIH-style Biographical Sketch (up to 5 pages)

Mentors:

1. NIH-style Biographical Sketch for each mentor (up to 5 pages each):
   1. In the A. Personal Statement, include a section on Prior Commitment to Training and Mentoring: Demonstrate past commitment to effective training, mentoring, and career development. Describe the individualized training and mentoring offered for 2-5 recent PhD-level trainees.
2. Biosketch Addendum for each mentor (not included in 5 pages):
   1. List of students the mentor has graduated and their respective publications
3. Jointly Written Recommendation Letter (up to 2 pages):
   1. Affirm that any candidate expenses not covered by this fellowship will be covered by the mentor(s), department, or School.
   2. Candidate’s Potential: Provide an overall assessment of the candidate's preparedness and likelihood for success in the proposed project and for a productive career in the biomedical research workforce.
4. Joint Mentors Commitment Statement (up to 2 pages):
   1. Mentoring Approach & Candidate Mentoring Plan: Describe the mentoring approach and the specific mentoring plan for the candidate to ensure career advancement in the biomedical research workforce.
   2. Commitment to Candidate’s Research Plan: Include a description of the frequency, duration, and nature of meetings with the candidate. 

Proposal Submission Format:

• Please use 11-point Arial or Helvetica font and 1-inch margins.
• Assemble entire application as one PDF titled: “Lastname_Firstname_2025PFCN.pdf”
• Submit using our online application form.
• Final award announcements will be made in early May.

Criteria for Evaluation:

• Alignment with RFA: transformative, collaborative, multidisciplinary.
• Benefit to student.
• See scoring rubric below and FAQs for additional details.

Review Process:

Each application will have three reviewers, and each reviewer will use the rubric below and be asked to write a short summary with the strengths and weaknesses of the application. 

Scoring Rubric for Reviewers:

Please score each category below from 1-9 (with 1 being the best, NIH style). Try to spread the score as much as possible. An anonymous summary of the reviews will be provided back to the applicants. 

Score categories include:

• Overall Impact: Provide an overall impact score to reflect your assessment of the likelihood for the project to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved.
• Candidate’s Preparedness & Potential: Discuss the candidate’s preparedness for the proposed research training plan. Consider the context, e.g., the candidate’s stage of training and the opportunities available.
• Research Project: Assess the rigor and feasibility of the research training project and how completion of the project will contribute to the development of the candidate as a research scientist.
• Collaboration: Does the project require a collaborative approach? Are the mentors well-suited to the project? Does combination of mentors or disciplines enable studies that the student could not accomplish alone?

2024 Fellows: 

Becky Waugh- Psychology | Mentors: Per Sederberg, PhD, Psychology; Jessica Connelly, PhD, Psychology  

Becky Waugh is a 4th year PhD student in the Psychology department. She is co-mentored by Drs. Per Sederberg and Jessica Connelly. Her research focuses on understanding individual trajectories of aging and neurodegeneration. Using neuroimaging, epigenetic and computational modeling techniques, Becky's work seeks to better understand how early life adverse experiences and stress contribute to accelerated aging and worse health outcomes for older adults. A current project, working with the prairie vole (a biparental rodent), seeks to develop better methods for neuroimaging in this species and track and predict epigenetic and neural outcomes based on differences in parental care. Through this work, Becky will discover whether early life adversity can determine the course of aging into later years and how to more precisely predict an individual's life outcome at earlier time points. Eventually, Becky would like to work towards targeted interventions to prevent worsened health outcomes in later years due to early life adversity. 

Roberta Onoharigho- Biology | Mentors: John Campell, PhD, Biology; Edward Nieh, PhD, Pharmacology  

Roberta Onoharigho is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biology. She is co-advised by Drs. John Campbell and Edward Nieh for her project investigating a novel population of hypothalamic neurons, which may stimulate adipose tissue to increase energy metabolism. Her research utilizes cutting-edge molecular tools and in vivo microscopy techniques to better understand these neuronal populations. This study will advance the field of energy homeostasis and inform the design of safe therapies to combat metabolic diseases. 

Yu Shi- Biology | Mentors: Ali Güler, PhD, Biology; George Bloom, PhD, Biology  

Yu Shi is a 4th year PhD student from the Biology Department, co-mentored by Dr. Ali Güler and Dr. George Bloom. She is interested in studying the interplay between the circadian system and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). She is designing a chronotherapy with shorter light, time-restricted feeding and time-restricted exercise to enhance circadian entrainment in mice. Yu is doing a comprehensive work to characterize the effect of this chronotherapy on mice including circadian rhythm of the central pacemaker suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain, EEG recorded sleep, brain clearance and animal metabolism. She is applying this circadian treatment to different AD mouse models to determine its protective role against cognition decline and AD pathology. Her research goal is to unravel the mechanisms of circadian treatment in neurodegenerative disease and understand how different circadian entrainment cues work synergistically. 

Tula Raghavan- Neuroscience | Mentors: Alban Gaultier, PhD, Neuroscience; Laura Newman, PhD, Cell Biology  

Tula Raghavan is a 3rd year graduate student and medical scientist trainee in the lab of Dr. Alban Gaultier. Her research examines the role of oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glia of the CNS, in dementia. Specifically, she is investigating genomic damage in oligodendrocytes in the context of Alzheimer’s Disease using a combination of spatial transcriptomics, flow cytometry, and imaging techniques. She aims to elucidate the contribution of this cell type to the neurodegeneration and cognitive decline seen in Alzheimer’s Disease as well as uncover the mechanisms by which DNA damage contributes to innate immunity in the brain. 

Kristofor Pas- Biomedical Engineering | Mentors: Gustavo Rohde, PhD, Biomedical Engineering; Min Park, MD, Neurosurgery

Kristofor Pas is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student advised by Professor Gustavo Rohde. His research bridges mathematics and radiology, focusing on developing clinically relevant mathematical models. Currently, co-advised by Drs. Min Park and Natasha Ironside, Kristofor’s work aims to identify and model variables involved in hematoma expansion. Discovering such a model would significantly improve patient risk assessment and provide insight into the mechanisms of hematoma expansion, improving clinical outcomes. 

Caeley Reever- Neuroscience | Mentors: Manoj Patel, PhD, Anesthesiology; Charles Farber, PhD, Public Health Sciences  

Caeley Reever is a PhD candidate in the neuroscience program, working in the Patel and Farber labs. Combining the expertise of these two labs, Caeley is a translational researcher investigating the physiological and genetic downstream impact of Single Nucleotide Variants (SNVs) in the SCN8A gene encoding Nav1.6 ion channels in pediatric epileptic encephalopathy. Their research explores the potential role of CRISPR technologies, specifically Prime and Base Editing systems, to target and treat SCN8A epileptic encephalopathy. Caeley employs these systems within their designed mouse-adapted cell lines as well as in vivo with mus musculus models. Her long-term goal is to understand how gene therapy solutions could offer an alternative seizure treatment method that could enhance infantile survival as well as facilitate gene therapy solutions for other nervous system disorders. Currently, the pharmacological treatment options for SCN8A epileptic encephalopathy are unable to address the underlying genetic defects driving the disease, and thus cannot fully mitigate symptoms or prevent mortality. By targeting the root cause - the genetic mutations - our group aims to create personalized gene therapy solutions for this form of pediatric epilepsy.