The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) COVID-19 Caregiving Affected Early-Career Research Scientists (CARES) Retention Program was established in 2021. Its purpose is to support early-career researchers who experienced a decline in their scholarship and research output due to caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic’s peak. CARES aims to prevent these researchers from leaving academic research by providing funding for additional support.

“The overarching goals of CARES is to ensure successful scholarship, avoid an early career funding gap, and avert attrition from academia – disproportionately experienced by women and persons from backgrounds underrepresented in science,” says Heersink School of Medicine program contact Michael Mugavero, M.D., MHSc.

Over the last two years, CARES at UAB has granted up to $50,000 each to 28 assistant and associate professors from the schools of Medicine, Health Professions, Nursing, and Public Health. These grants serve as a means to assist caregiving-affected investigators in restoring their research productivity.

Recipients also engage in a monthly seminar series organized by CARES at UAB. Initially designed to foster a sense of community, the seminar series serves multiple purposes, such as offering lectures on career development strategies and providing a platform for awardees to present their ongoing projects. Over time, the series has evolved into a supportive environment where awardees can openly discuss their unique challenges as scientists and caregivers. This forum encourages honest conversations and enables participants to effectively contribute their thoughts and ideas to tackle these issues.

CARES at UAB initially received funding from the forward-thinking Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists (FRCS), sponsored by the Doris Duke Foundation, and focused on supporting and retaining physician-scientists at UAB. Internally at UAB, the program received an overwhelming enthusiasm to broaden the scope to include non-physician scientists.

The program expanded its reach thanks to additional funding from various institutional sources, including the schools of Medicine, Health Professions, Nursing, and Public Health, the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and the Department of Pediatrics. As a result, 16 additional awards were made available specifically for non-physician researchers in the four aforementioned schools. These additional funds played a crucial role in supporting and recognizing the valuable contributions of non-physician scientists within the program.

Awardees from the first round of grants took the opportunity to express how the supplemental funding has positively impacted their professional journeys: “CARES funding has allowed me to finish analyses, manuscripts, and disseminate results that I would otherwise not have been able to accomplish.” “The CARES program has been fantastic – I appreciate the “extra hands” that have allowed me to make progress without making undo sacrifices in other arenas.” “This funding has been extremely helpful in moving this project forward. I am thankful for the opportunity to hire a research assistant to help with data entry and project administration.”

Read more about the program.

COERE T32 Trainee and UAB General Surgery Resident Connie Shao, M.D., was awarded the Piedmont American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS) Award. Shao won the award for her presentation “Limited Health Literacy is Associated Reduced Adherence to ERP Components” which was presented in Tampa, FL during the 2022 ASCRS Annual Scientific Meeting.

A 2021 article written by a collaborative team of UAB researchers has been awarded the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology's 2022 Impact Award. "Racial and socioeconomic disparity associates with differences in cardiac DNA methylation among men with end-stage heart failure," authored by Mark Pepin, M.D., Ph.D., Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Experimental Cardiology at Heidelberg University; Bertha Hidalgo, Ph.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor, School of Public Health; Adam Wende, Ph.D., Associate Professor, UAB Pathology, and Selwyn Vickers, M.D., Office of the Dean and Senior Vice President for Medicine, UAB Heersink School of Medicine, received the honor.

The Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE), in partnership with the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, is pleased to announce the initial CARES at UAB Awardees. In the first round of funding CARES at UAB made 7 awards to funded researchers, for one year. These “extra hands” awards provide up to $50,000 to early-career physician-scientists who have encountered significant challenges to their research progress and productivity due to caregiving responsibilities caused by the pandemic. Awards are intended to support additional personnel, not directly funded by existing research grants, as a means to augment and accelerate the conduct of projects to increase peer review scholarship and submission of extramural grant awards. The overarching goal of CARES at UAB is to support the retention of early-career physician scientists with caregiving responsibilities in academic research positions, while raising institutional awareness, programs, and fostering a culture that recognizes and supports research faculty who are caregivers.

CARES at UAB is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists, along with matching funds from the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, as one of 22 programs nationally supported by DDCF and its funding partners — the American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, John Templeton Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation and the Walden Foundation.

Awardees include physician-scientists from the Department of Medicine Divisions of Infectious Diseases, Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, Hematology/Oncology, Preventive Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease and the Department of Pediatrics Division of Hematology/Oncology.

Ellen Eaton, MD, MSPH, FIDSA

Associate Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases

Chao He, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine

Emily Johnston, MD, MS

Assistant Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology

Yulia Khodneva, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Preventive Medicine

Arora Pankaj, MD, FAHA, FASE

Associate Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Cardiovascular Disease

Olivia Van Gerwen, MD

Assistant Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases

Grant Williams, MD, MSPH

Assistant Professor
School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
Division of Hematology/Oncology

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists and its funding partners — the American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, John Templeton Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation and the Walden Foundation — have awarded the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education, or COERE, more than $500,000 to support early-career investigators whose research funding was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with “extra hands” grants to augment their academic scholarship. 

With matching funds from the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, up to 20 awards will be made during the two-year program to support the research productivity and retention of early-career faculty. This “extra hands” award provides funds for research supplements of up to $50,000 to early-career physician-scientists who have encountered significant challenges to research progress due to caregiving responsibilities caused by the pandemic. In the first round of funding, up to 10 awards will be made to funded researchers, supporting their efforts for up to one year.

Michael J. Mugavero, M.D., COERE director and co-director for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, along with Mona Fouad, M.D., professor and director of the Division of Preventive Medicine, will lead program administration, oversee the budget and resource management, and guide the program implementation and evaluation units. Alia Tunagur, COERE program manager, will serve as program administrator.  

“Prior to COVID-19, efforts were afoot at UAB to address the impacts of caregiving responsibilities on the productivity and well-being of faculty, staff and students, with increased caregiving resources made available during the pandemic,” Mugavero said. “With support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the CARES at UAB Retention Program builds on these efforts and will serve as a transformational catalyst.”  

He added that the “extra hands” grants supported by this program will directly address early-career investigators’ unmet personnel needs to augment their research productivity, addressing a major source of distress exacerbated by COVID-19. 

“The commitment of matching funds from the UAB Heersink School of Medicine will not only increase the reach and impact of this grant award but serves as a harbinger of future policies and programs, informed by our program evaluation, to support the productivity and well-being of physician-scientists with caregiving responsibilities beyond the life of this grant,” Mugavero said. 

Driving Research: an Interdisciplinary, Vibrant, Engaged Network (DRIVEN) Co-Directors Bertha Hidalgo, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Faculty Scholar in the Center for the Study of Community Health and Gregory Payne, MD, PhD, physician-scientist and inaugural recipient of the American Heart Association-Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program Career Development Award, Associate Director of the NIH-Funded Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and member of the Physician Scientist Development Office (PSDO) at UAB, will co-lead program implementation of CARES at UAB.

Co-leading the program implementation of CARES at UAB are the two Co-Directors of Driving Research: an Interdisciplinary, Vibrant, Engaged Network (DRIVEN), Bertha Hidalgo, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Faculty Scholar in the Center for the Study of Community Health and Gregory Payne, MD, PhD, physician-scientist and inaugural recipient of the American Heart Association-Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program Career Development Award, Associate Director of the NIH-Funded Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and member of the Physician Scientist Development Office (PSDO) at UAB.

Dr. Hidalgo believes “programs like DRIVEN and UAB CARES are catalysts for much needed fundamental changes. They provide the networks and support needed to recruit, but more importantly retain research scholars at UAB. As co-director of DRIVEN, I am eager to work with the UAB CARES team to bring this extra hands support to the inaugural cohort of awardees.”

Leading Program Evaluation is Katherine Meese, PhD, Assistant Professor and Program Director in UAB’s Department of Health Services Administration and Director of Wellness Research within UAB Medicine Office of Wellness. She also leads the National Center for Health Care Leadership Well-Being initiative as the inaugural Chair of the Well-Being Council. During the pandemic, she led UAB Medicine’s evaluation of employee well-being to identify specific needs for various employee sub-groups through an all-employee survey. This data was used to inform university-wide resources and policies, including increased childcare resources.

Dr. Meese said the following “After seeing the distress among our healthcare workers and researchers, along with increased demands of caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic, I am thrilled that we are able to provide meaningful support to aid in the recovery from this unprecedented time. UAB Medicine is changing the world through groundbreaking research, and I am thrilled that we can support our researchers in getting back to their discoveries. This gift from the Doris Duke Foundation, along with matching funds from UAB Medicine, demonstrates a tremendous commitment not only to our research mission, but to the well-being of those that make this mission possible.”

The initial application cycle opened Nov. 1, 2021, and will close Dec. 10, 2021. Applicants will receive a decision by Dec. 20, 2021, and awards will begin Jan. 1, 2022.

For more information and to apply, click here

Chu will help plan and lead the strategic growth of health services research activity across the department as well as research improvement initiatives. He will also become a member of the department’s senior leadership council.

One of our incredibly talented T32 alum, Libby Van Gerwen, MD, MPH, was chosen to serve as a Koopman Research Mentor to first-year medical student, Willow Bryan! We have no doubts that Libby will excel at this mentorship role and convey her abundance of knowledge and professionalism in the infectious disease field to her mentee! Congratulations to Libby and Willow, best of luck in your new mentor-mentee relationship!

Congratulations to Dr. Michael J. Mugavero for receiveing the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship award, presented by AHRQ to faculty members who exhibit integrity, knowledge, guidance, and inspiration throughout their training tenure of T32 fellows/trainees. Dr. Mugavero exemplifies all these qualities, and then some! Congratulations again and we are so proud to work alongside you, Mugs!