The Diversity in Neuroscience Scholarship Fund provides financial support for graduate students from diverse backgrounds to help them participate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP). Students from recognized disadvantaged backgrounds or underrepresented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities and individuals with disabilities, are eligible to apply. This application is confidential, and identifying information will only be available to the chair and co-chair of the Neuroscience DEI Committee.
Scholarship recipients will benefit from interdisciplinary training and mentorship with distinguished Ohio State faculty as part of the doctoral program that aims to produce tomorrow’s pioneers in brain research. Along with about 30 fellow students, scholarship winners will explore leading-edge research related to the intricacies of the healthy brain and treatments for brain injury and diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, neurotrauma and multiple sclerosis.
This scholarship promotes equity and inclusion within the NGP and the neuroscience field by providing an entry point for students whose backgrounds are fraught with steep barriers, absent from other students’ experiences, that severely limit their ability to access, compete for or manage graduate-level opportunities.
This scholarship supports student costs for aspects of the NGP training and education, such as:
- Travel to present data at national and international conferences
- Attend local and national workshops on networking and career development
- Research projects, supplies and stipends
The chair and co-chair of the Neuroscience DEI Committee will work together with NGP director(s) to identify eligible trainees and determine scholarship amount and type.
As an incoming NGP student explained, “Being a Black student in the sciences often involves a lot of behind-the-scenes management of challenges not experienced by your peers. Particularly for students of my background – immigrant, underrepresented minority of a low socioeconomic status – these challenges can be so overwhelming, difficult and imminent, they become unmanageable and lead to severe impacts on our education and training. This scholarship will be especially important in eliminating some of these challenges, so that we can get back to the star of the show—our science!”
This Diversity in Neuroscience Scholarship Fund is directly in line with The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Anti-Racism Plan. It is not only the right thing to do for students and the profession, it is the right thing to do for patients. Encouraging diversity in the NGP will have the long-term effect of producing a more diverse pool of neuroscientists doing innovative research that will improve patient care to better reflect the society we serve.
“The Diversity in Neuroscience Scholarship Fund will not only reduce disparities within neuroscience education, it will advance the pace of research and medical treatments because diverse teams are known to be more creative and productive.”
Dana McTigue, PhD
Professor, Neuroscience Graduate Program
Chair of the Department of Neuroscience DEI Committee
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