Professional Development Scholarships

SHARP Training Scholarship Awards for Trainees and Career Development

Jump to: Overview | Award | Eligibility | Available Scholarships | Apply | Contact

The SHARP Training Program is committed to developing short, intensive trainings for researchers and investigators at all career stages to incorporate new knowledge, methods, and tools into our fast, ever-changing innovative health and research fields. The primary audience for trainings is biomedical researchers with advanced degrees and currently working in a professional research setting. Our professional development scholarships provide opportunities for individuals who have potential to shape future health and research fields using powerful and innovative techniques. These awards increase the accessibility and participation of early-stage researchers and professionals in learning in-demand field methods.

The summer portion of the training program has a limited number of professional development scholarship awards available for eligible, early-career candidates -from any domestic or international institution- to cover a portion of the participant registration fees.

Award

Awards are made for summer trainings (May – August) on the basis of scientific merit, financial need, and potential impact of the applicant’s attendance in increasing the diversity of training participation, with particular focus on underrepresented groups and participants who would be unable or less likely to attend the training otherwise.

Each award covers 50% of the registration course fee. In rare situations, some full-coverage (100%) awards to be issued due to extenuating circumstances of an applicant or if additional funding has been donated to the scholarship program. Awards do not cover travel or accommodation costs. The award is provided in the form of a registration code used during online registration to waive 50% of the training fee.

Eligibility

  • We welcome applications from any organization from:
    • 1) early-career investigators with doctoral degrees (e.g. post-doctoral fellows/researchers, early-career faculty within 5 years of first faculty appointment) OR
    • 2) early-career professionals with equivalent work experience to an advanced degree.
  • Candidates from any domestic/international organization are welcome to apply, and we particularly encourage underrepresented minorities and international trainees from outside the U.S. to apply.
  • Ineligible: Students (undergrad and graduate) are ineligible for SHARP scholarships.
  • Ineligible: Prior scholarship awardees who have received a SHARP scholarship from this program in the last three years are ineligible (e.g. cannot apply for 2024 scholarship if received an award sometime from 2021-2023 for any SHARP Training).
  • Applications are limited to one per individual, per annual application cycle. Within each application, you may list a second training if desired.
  • Columbia employees are eligible to apply, but a scholarship award cannot be combined with a Columbia employee discount. In general, scholarship awards cannot be combined with any type of discount except early-bird pricing.

Available 2024 Scholarships

The application period for 2024 scholarships is closed. 

The following trainings offer scholarships for early career researchers and investigators, with the number of scholarships available depending on training funding and capacity. Each scholarship covers 50% of the registration fee, at time of registration. The awardee is responsible for remaining 50% of fee at time of registration, and all travel/accommodation costs if applicable. Click on the training title to learn more about a specific training. To apply for a scholarship, review the process further under the 'Apply' section of this page.

There are more than 50 total scholarships available program-wide, with at least one scholarship available for each of the following 2024 trainings:

Apply

Please read the following instructions carefully before submitting your application. Only completed applications and PDF recommendation letters submitted by the deadline will be reviewed. Late submissions, or documents in other formats will not be accepted or reviewed. All questions should be directed to ColumbiaSHARP.Scholarships@gmail.com.

  1. Confirm your eligibility before applying.
  2. Fill out all required fields of the application link below.
    1. Your current status, including institution and number of years in the current program, etc.
    2. Your field of interest and future career plans
    3. Description of how the award will help you with your career plans
    4. Financial need
    5. Identification in underrepresented groups
    6. Contact information for your mentor/Chair to submit a recommendation letter
    7. Any information that you feel is relevant to the Committee's decision
  3. Immediately upon submitting your application, your mentor or Department Chair will receive an automatic email notification (using the details you input on your application) with a link for them to upload a recommendation letter before the submission deadline as a single PDF file attachment to your previously submitted application. It is the Applicant's responsibility to confirm the mentor/Chair submitted their letter, as the Program Subcomittee will not reach out to your mentor/Chair for this letter due to submission volume. A confirmation email is sent to the both the applicant and mentor/Chair upon receipt of the letter, and applicants can also inquire with the Program Subcommittee to verify if a letter has been received by emailing ColumbiaSHARP.Scholarships@gmail.com. The letter should support the application by including the following:
    1. Confirms that the applicant is in good standing at the time the application is submitted
    2. Describes how the applicant will benefit from attending this training (include second SHARP training if applicant applied for a second scholarship in their application)
    3. Explains why the applicant is in need of the award and whether there is funding available to cover the remaining expenses that are not covered by this scholarship award
  4. The program subcommittee reviews applications, selects awardees, and notifies all applicants and awardees by early April.

The submission period for 2024 scholarships is now closed. 

Contact

All questions should be directed to ColumbiaSHARP.Scholarships@gmail.com.

Sign up to hear about scholarship opportunities and deadlines.