The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) today announced the launch of the NAM Fellowship to Advance State Health Policy with funding from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin. This new program provides talented, early-career health science scholars from Wisconsin with the opportunity to experience and participate in evidence-based health care or public health studies that improve the care and access to care of patients. Through direct involvement in health- and medicine-related work of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the fellowship prepares young investigators to contribute to the future of health care while accelerating their own career development.
“We are pleased to launch this new fellowship in partnership with the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment,” said Victor J. Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine. “The states have always played an essential role in health policy. The past few years, especially during COVID-19, have shown how state-level decisions can be used to improve the health of the nation. This fellowship is our first that focuses explicitly on building state health policy expertise for the next generation of health care leaders and will serve as a model for future state-based fellowships.”
The two-year fellowship requires a time commitment of 10 percent to 20 percent to engage in the National Academies’ health and science policy work, while the fellows continue in their primary academic posts. The fellows will work with an expert study committee or roundtable related to their professional interests, including contributing to reports or other products. A flexible research grant of $25,000 will be awarded to each fellow. In addition, each fellow will be assigned to an NAM member who will serve as a senior mentor during the fellowship.
The call for nominations will open in March 2022, with the inaugural fellow to begin the program in September 2022. Candidates must be nominated by an NAM member or a senior leader from a Wisconsin school or university, hold a doctoral degree, and be a non-tenured member of an academic faculty with residence in the state of Wisconsin. The program especially welcomes nominations of historically underrepresented candidates. More information on nominations and evaluation criteria is available here.
“The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment is thrilled to partner with the National Academy of Medicine to provide opportunities for talented scholars from Wisconsin to advance their capacity to improve the health of our communities,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment and senior associate dean at the Medical College of Wisconsin School of Medicine. “Our support of this endeavor is a demonstration of our ongoing commitment to ensuring we have the health workforce our state needs to make Wisconsin the healthiest state in the nation.”
In addition to the NAM Fellowship program, the NAM administers four programs designed to cultivate the next generation of leaders in health, medicine, and biomedical science, while engaging them in the work of the NAM and the National Academies.
