Scholar Awards

Part of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the award supports exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects in the biomedical, behavioral or social sciences within the NIH mission.

• Single PI only
• Must have Early-Stage Investigator status (completed doctoral degree or postgraduate clinical training within last 10 years and never received a substantial NIH independent research award)
• No preliminary data required
• Minimum of 25% research effort
• $1.5 million in direct costs split into two multi-year segments

Limits: Non-limited for each institution, but P.I.s can only submit one application per cycle

Application Deadline: Aug. 19, 2024

The objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program is to identify and engage researchers in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic and non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) needs and DARPA’s program development process.

The YFA program provides funding, mentoring and industry and DoD contacts to awardees early in their careers so they may develop their research ideas in the context of national security needs. The long term goal of the YFA program is to develop the next generation of academic scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who will focus a significant portion of their career on DoD and National Security issues.

Executive Summary Deadline: Nov. 18, 2024, 4:00 p.m.
Full Proposal Deadline: Feb. 5, 2025, 4:00 p.m.

The Air Force is receiving applications for the FY 2025 Young Investigator Program. Applicants must have received a Ph.D. or equivalent by April 1, 2017 or later. The program aims to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for young investigators to recognize the Air Force and Space Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering.

White Papers Deadline: April 22, 2024

Application Deadline: June 21, 2024

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career faculty should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from early-career faculty at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.

Application Deadline: July 23, 2025

The Alan T. Waterman Award honors an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the National Science Foundation. The awardee receives a grant of $1 million over five years for scientific research or advanced study in any field of science, plus a medal and other recognition.

Eligibility criteria include:

• Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must be 40 years of age or younger, OR not more than ten years beyond the receipt of the Ph.D. degree by December 31st of the year they are nominated.
• Candidates should have demonstrated exceptional individual achievements in scientific or engineering research of sufficient quality, originality, innovation and significant impact on the field to place them at the forefront of their peers.

Nominations consist of the following:

• Nominee’s contact information
• Nominee’s history and citations.
• Narrative statement which covers the nominee’s qualifications for the Alan T. Waterman Award. The statement should be no more than 3 pages.
• Nominee’s publications and contributions (list up to 20).
• Four reference letters (limit 2 pages) from writers outside of the nominee’s home institution. The system will automatically send an email to these reference writers to notify them that their assistance is requested once their contact information is entered. Please see Letter of Reference Template for requirements and tips for preparing strong letters of recommendation.

Limit: NC State may nominate an unlimited number of individuals and there are no restrictions on who may nominate. Self-nominations are not accepted.
Webinar hosted by NSF: Aug. 14, 2024 at 2 p.m. Register here
Nomination Deadline: Sept. 20, 2024

The Simons Foundation’s Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for its Scientific Software Research Faculty Award (SSRF Award) in the MPS program for faculty appointments to start between September 2024–September 2025. The foundation strongly encourages scientists from disadvantaged backgrounds or underrepresented groups to apply.

Scientific software is a critical component of research, enabling scientists to analyze and reduce data, perform simulations, automate tasks, and produce and visualize results. As such, the development and maintenance of broadly-applicable scientific software has become an increasingly important intellectual endeavor. While scientific software experts are crucial members of research ventures, their career prospects beyond postdoctoral-level positions are limited.

The Simons Foundation invites applications for funding to support new research professor positions in existing academic departments (the “host institutions”) to be filled by scientific software-focused researchers. The SSRF Award will support researchers who have a strong track record of leadership in scientific software development. The aim of this program is to stimulate the development and maintenance of core scientific software infrastructure in academic environments through creating a new, long-term, faculty-level career path.

LOI Deadline: Dec 5, 2024
LOI notification sent by: March 31, 2025
Full Proposal Deadline: March 31, 2026

The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation supports early postdoctoral research training in all basic biomedical sciences. To attain its ultimate goal of increasing the number of imaginative, well-trained and dedicated medical scientists, the Foundation grants financial support of sufficient duration to help further the careers of young men and women engaged in biological or medical research.

The Foundation will not make more than one award per year for training with a given supervisor. Should we receive more than one application from a single laboratory, we will review only one, as chosen by the Chair of the SAC, and decline the other(s) administratively. We urge the heads of laboratories to make this choice for us. We also do not support more than two fellows per laboratory at the same time, so that if we make awards to applicants from a particular laboratory in two successive years, applicants from that laboratory are ineligible in the third year.

Application Deadline: June 16, 2025