Office of Fellowship Training

National Institute Of Mental Health

Investigators

Abstract

The NIMH Office of Fellowship Training (OFT) started the fiscal year with 4 team members but due to a number of factors, our team is now composed of two individuals since April 2025. The OFT manages resources, mentoring and counseling for over 300 trainees at all training levels in the NIMH IRP. Starting in May 2025, and continuing for the foreseeable future, the NIMH OFT became the training office for trainees in the NCCIH labs of Drs. Atlas, Carrasquillo, Chesler, and Backonja. NCCIH trainees, faculty and staff will have access to the same OFT resources, seminars and workshops that NIMH IRP have access to. Processing of non-FTE personnel cases for all domestic trainees was transferred from the OFT to the NIMH IRP administrative staff in January 2024, but in FY25 the OFT continues to process cases for international trainees which numbered 65 to date (August 2025). The OFT provided faculty with 23 Predoc IRTA slots including tuition and administrative fees, and 16 OFT Loaner slots for Postbac IRTAs. No new OFT Loaner Slots have been assigned since January 2025 due to budgetary constraints and phasing out of OFT Loaner Slots. The OFT provided monthly orientations to trainees. The OFT continued to expand the OFT LinkedIn Group with current and past NIMH IRP trainees and to post content weekly. Activity on the OFT LinkedIn Group was put on hold in April 2025. In addition, OFT posted content on the NIMH X and LinkedIn feeds through April 2025 but has not posted since that time. The OFT provides career and professional development guidance and solicits trainee feedback during and upon completion of their time at NIMH. Symposia/Seminar Series In FY25, the OFT and Fellows Committee organized the 27th Annual NIMH IRP Fellows Scientific Training Day to be held in-person at the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. This year’s event will highlight and celebrate our NIMH IRP trainee community and two prominent keynote speakers Dr. Talmo Pereira, Salk Institute and Dr. Gavin Rumbaugh, Florida Scripps Institute . The event will be held on September 25, 2025 with more than 250 attendees expected to participate. The Fellows Committee with the OFT organized the monthly Fellows Afternoon Neuroscience Seminar Series (FANS) and the Fellows Invited Lecture Series (FILS). In FY25 FILS speakers have included Dr. Matthew Nock. In FY24 the OFT organized a new event called Pizza & Pubs where trainees provided short presentations on their first authorship publications to an audience of IRP faculty, staff and trainees. The OFT continued to sponsor this event in FY25 which has served to rebuild community in the post pandemic era and sessions have been well attended. Pizza for this event is sponsored by Faculty, Staff and IRP Leadership (no government funds were spent on pizza). The OFT organized the 2024/2025 IRP Investigators Seminar Series, and the NIMH IRP Scientific Career Mentor Group. The Scientific Career Mentor Group sponsors an NIMH IRP interview series entitled Growing up in Science where guests share details around their careers, including challenges encountered on their career journeys. Drs. Amy Hauck Newman, Maryland Pao, Betsy Murray, and Hugo Tejeda were interviewed in FY25. The 11th Annual Julius Axelrod Symposium was not held in FY25. The 11th Annual Julius Axelrod Symposium will be held next in FY26 in April and will celebrate the Society for Neuroscience 2024 and 2025 Axelrod Prize winners as well as the NIMH IRP Axelrod Memorial Fellowship awardees and the NIMH IRP trainee community. Training OFT organized the IRP Grantsmanship Workshop with Grant Writing Mentors, LLC. Training was provided in three phases, and in FY25 Phase I provided training in Grantsmanship to 30 trainees from NIMH, and 5 other institutes. Seven trainees from 3 ICs participated in Phases II and III of the workshop. This year, NIMH Trainees submitted grant proposals for K99, K22 and private funding including 10 submissions to the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) Young Investigator Award. The OFT offered seminars for Postdocs on career award (K-Awards) and NSF funding mechanisms. To satisfy the NIH mandate to provide all NIH IRP scientific staff with training in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), the OFT held 11 Ethics for Lunch discussions on Using AI to write a manuscript and/or to analyze data from October 2024 to January 2025. Ninety nine percent of NIMH IRP Scientific staff (588) satisfied their research ethics training requirement in FY25. In FY25 Science Communication Seminars and Workshops included the Three Minute Talk (TmT) coaching and competition. Twenty-six trainees participated in the TmT coaching and will compete in the NIMH IRP competition, finalists will compete again at the Training Day on September 25th. Negotiation Skills, Interview Skills for Postdocs, and Chalk Talk Workshops were offered in FY25. In FY24 the OFT created a Credly Badge Program so that trainees can now certify their Science Communication Training and this effort was carried into FY25. Postbac-specific training opportunities in FY25 included a Poster Creation Workshop, a Statistics Course, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Application Workshop, an Interview Skills Workshop, a Clinical Psychology PhD Program Application Workshop, a Pre-Med Application Workshop, and an NIMH funding session for graduate and medical students. The NIH did not host a Summer Internship Program in FY25. NIMH/NIH hope to once again host Summer Interns in FY26. OFT Administered Programs In FY25, the OFT administered and directed the University College London-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience and the NIH-Karolinska Institutet (NIH-KI) Program for Graduate Training in the Neurosciences. The UCL-NIMH Graduate Program had 19 applications and the KI-NIH Graduate Program had 10 applications for 2025 admittance. Due to a variety of circumstances interviews were not held this year and therefore no new students were admitted in FY25. We will take applications for consideration for matriculation in FY26 and plan to interview in Spring of 2026. In FY25 OFT held quarterly virtual check-in sessions with UCL and KI Program students. We received 30 applicantions for the NIMH Cohort Program for Advancing Scientific Excellence (CPASE) and great interest from both NIMH PIs and applicants after announcement of the program early in FY25. In February 2025 the decision was made to put the program on hold and to not take a cohort into the program in FY25. In FY25 the OFT continued to lead and organize the NIH Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience Award Program (OSNAP) and the affiliated Award Symposium with NINDS, NIDA, NEI, NIDCD, NIDCR, NCATS, and NIGMS. There were 108 nominees for the award in FY25 and 23 were selected to be part of the 6th cohort of NIH OSNAP Award recipients. The OFT participated in the selection of 2025 Outstanding Resident Award Program (ORAP) recipients and will provide support for the ORAP meeting to be held in October 2025. OFT Recruitment of Trainees The OFT Team participated in trainee recruiting efforts through the NIH OITE Graduate Program Fair and at annual meetings for the Society of Neuroscience, SACNAS, ABRCMS, and ACNP. In FY25 the OFT held quarterly drop-in NIMH IRP training opportunities information sessions on Zoom with an average attendance of 30-50 individuals per session in the last quarter of 2024 but these sessions have not been held since December 2024. When held these sessions were publicly advertised using the NIMH Twitter and LinkedIn feeds which are no longer active.