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Travel Awards

The LEARNERS Travel Award provide financial support for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to attend professional meetings. Each program participant may receive up to $800 during a program year to help cover the cost of registration, lodging, and economy travel to attend meetings. The aim is to help PhD students network and gain more experience with scientific presentation. Applications are accepted on a rotating basis and award notices will be sent within 3 weeks of application submission.

Eligibility

• Must be presenting author for an accepted meeting abstract. Attendance is required for cost reimbursement.
• Abstract must constitute high scientific relevance, as determined by a committee of reviewers.
• Applicant must have attended at least 80% of LEARNERS program activities.

Application Materials

• Copy of the accepted abstract.
• Statement regarding the impact that the presented research will have on science and the community.
• Statement of the impact conference attendance and presentation will have on your career and/or learning experience.
• Description of estimated expenses.
• All applications must be submitted through the LEARNERS Travel Award Application. Please contact the IDARE Office to Receive the Application.  

Previous Awardees

• Mudia Uzzi, PhD Student, Health Behavior and Society. Investigating violence disparities through an intersectional lens: Using additive interaction approaches to explore the relationship of redlining and racialized economic segregation on Non-Fatal Shootings in Baltimore City, Maryland. Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research, Washington, DC.
• Kumba Seddu, PhD Student, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. The role of sex hormone and sex chromosome in predicting sex differences in influenza vaccine-induced immunity and protection in mice. Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Sex Differences in Immunity in Health and Disease, Ventura, CA.
• Jason Haw, PhD Student, Epidemiology. Incident hypertension among young adults with perinatally-acquired HIV in the NA-ACCORD. 25th International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD) meeting. Athens, Greece.
• Verné Qaanaaq Boerner, PhD Student, Epidemiology. Indigenous Waters: Learning from Elders in a Qasriq (Community Hall), 25th Annual Alaska Forum on The Environment. Anchorage, AK.
• Antoine S. Johnson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History of Medicine. A History of Anti-Black Racism in Medicine. Organization of American Historians (OAH). Los Angeles, CA.
• Sumayya Beekun, PhD Student, International Health. Establishing and addressing the burden of Staphylococcus aureus infections in Indigenous children. 10th International Meeting on Indigenous Child Health (IMICH). Tulsa, OK.
• Melissa DeSantiago, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Exposures to Pesticides in an Occupational Chilean Cohort. International Society of Exposure Science (ISES) 2023 Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
• Lauren Deanes, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Community-Driven Assessment of Fugitive Dust Emissions from a Coal Terminal in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore, Maryland. International Society of Exposure Science Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
• Joelle Robinson-Oghogho, Postdoctoral Fellow, Health Behavior and Society. Structural Racism and Cancer Mortality: An Examination of US. 16^th AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and Medically Underserved. Orlando, FL.
• Augustina Mensa-Kwao, PhD Student, Mental Health. Youth Engagement in the Design of a Global Mental Health Databank and Identifying mental health interventions for urban youth. Brighter Futures 2024 Conference. Stockholm, Sweden.
• Idiatou Diallo, PhD Student, Mental Health. Sleep Moderates Depression and Quality of Life in People with Chronic Illnesses in South Africa & the United States. SLEEP 2024: The 38th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS). Houston, TX.
• Katherine Marquess, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Associations of endocrine disrupting chemical mixtures with vitamin D biomarkers in childhood: The HOME Study. International Society of Exposure Sciences (ISES). Montreal, Canada.
• Deja Knight, PhD Student, International Health. PrEP Modalities and Implementation Preferences Among Black Cisgender Emerging and Older Adult Women in Baltimore, Maryland. AIDS 2024, the 25th International AIDS Conference. Munich, Germany.
• Rashida Callendar, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Associations between historical redlining and climate-related exposures in the Texas Flood Registry. 2024 Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER) Conference. Austin, TX.
• Kayan Clarke, Postdoctoral Fellow, Epidemiology. Investigation of combined environmental exposures, and mental health symptoms and physical health conditions and dementia risk in a diverse US sample. International Society for Environmental Epidemiology 2024 Conference. Santiago, Chile.
• Grant Tore, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Building Capacity among Community Health Workers for the Report Back of Environmental Exposures in a Chilean Agricultural Community. International Society for Environmental Epidemiology 2024 Conference. Santiago, Chile.
• Melissa DeSantiago, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Evaluation of pesticide exposure and metabolic health indicators among adults in the agricultural community of Molina, Chile. International Society for Environmental Epidemiology 2024 Conference. Santiago, Chile.
• Lauren Deanes, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Community-Driven Assessments of Fugitive Dust Exposures from a Coal Terminal in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore, Maryland. International Society of Exposure Sciences (ISES). Montreal, Canada.
• Mohammed Gazali Salifu, PhD Student, International Health. Estimated Prevalence and Sex Disparity of Motor Vehicle Accidents Among In-School Adolescents (Aged 12–17 Years) with Reported Serious Injuries: A Multi-Country Analysis of Global School-based Health Surveys from African Countries. American Public Health Association (APHA) 2024. Minneapolis, MN.
• Sumayya Beekun, PhD Student, International Health. Indigenous student-researchers' perspectives on fostering community capacity, engagement, and empowerment in research with Indigenous communities. International Indigenous Research Conference (IIRC). Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
• Dionne Mitcham, PhD Student, Environmental Health and Engineering. Positive Influence of Individual-level Disaster Preparedness on the Odds of Individual-level Pandemic Preparedness. 2025 Preparedness Summit – Pathways to Recovery in the Aftermath of Disasters. San Antonio, TX.

Discovery Fellowships

The LEARNERS Discovery Fellowship seeks to support and enhance training opportunities for PhD students by providing funding to cover the cost of travel to gain hands-on training in a professional setting not affiliated with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) for up to 2 months. This fellowship will provide a total of four awards in the amount of $5000. Research must be conducted at an accredited university or research institution under the supervision of a highly qualified mentor with documented experience. The student must be physically present at the host institution of the mentor to carry out the proposed training during the fellowship period.

Eligibility

• Applicant must be currently enrolled as a full-time PhD student.
• Proposed training must take place at an institution that is not JHU-affiliated.
• Applicant must have attended at least 80% of LEARNERS program activities.
• Proposed mentor must be employed full-time at the research institution where the training will be conducted.
• Proposed mentor must have previous experience mentoring graduate-level trainees/students.

Application Materials

• Cover letter with brief description of the proposed training and timeline, specific methods to be gained, and how this training will enhance your learning experience.
• Letter of recommendation from a previous advisor, mentor, or supervisor.
• Applicant's NIH formatted biosketch.
• Selected mentor's NIH formatted biosketch.
• Letter of support from the selected mentor including information on research background, previous experience mentoring graduate students, and statement of commitment. 

Previous Fellows

• Aster Meche, PhD Student, Epidemiology. Institution: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.