Instructions for Mentor’s letter in support of a postdoctoral funding application
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PREPARING YOUR LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR A POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION
This mentor letter will be used to evaluate applicants for funding for both Infection and Immunity Postdoctoral
Training Grants (McLaughlin and T32). The Programs maintain separate review processes, but they do
communicate to assure the best use of our limited funds.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:
Please prepare a letter indicating your support of the applicant, with special attention to your expectations of
his/her success in becoming an independent investigator in infection and immunity research. To help all
funding sources evaluate the suitability of the applicant’s training environment, please attach the table (found
at the end of these instructions) to your letter. To help us appreciate how this applicant compares to his/her
peers, please complete the addendum that ranks him/her among his/her peers. Failure to include these
addenda with your letter will invalidate your fellow’s application. Applications are due at 5 PM on
March 20, 2009.
If you are a junior investigator, please consider selecting a senior co-mentor for your fellow, and ask that comentor to submit a letter (along with the above-cited table) indicating her/his willingness to assist you and your
fellow. Following this suggestion may help to allay review panel’s concerns over lack of demonstrated
experience of junior faculty in mentoring fellows.
All review committees expect that applications are produced by the applicant, not by his/her mentor. You are
likely to receive requests for input from your fellow, but his/her application must not contain material that has
been “cut-and-pasted” from material supplied by you, or other documents (manuscripts, grant applications,
reports) `pared by you and/or your collaborators.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
Please render your letter and the attached addenda into a single pdf document, name the file with your name
and the word “mentor” and the fellow’s last name (e.g., XYJones-mentor-ABSmith.pdf). (Co-mentors should
use an analogous file-naming format) and submit it to: McLaughlin.IHII@UTMB.edu. The Committee will
forward all applications to the Program Director of the T32 training grant.
T32-SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS:
Eligible applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent resident non-citizen nationals with M.D., Ph.D., or
D.V.M. degrees with an established interest and/or experience in emerging and reemerging infectious
diseases.
MCLAUGHLIN-SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS:
If your postdoctoral applicant is eligible for a McLaughlin Fellowship, her/his application will be reviewed sideby-side with other applications. As you can see from the “Sample McLaughlin Postdoctoral Review”, the
McLaughlin Committee uses three specific criteria (with the weighting indicated in the sample form) to review
applications (the T32 training grant is autonomous, and may use alternative weighting/criteria). The
McLaughlin Fellowship review panel will consist of the McLaughlin Committee, with additional outside
reviewers solicited by the Committee from the UTMB faculty. All McLaughlin reviewers review all applications,
but selected reviewers are given primary and secondary reviewer status. All applications are discussed in a
single review session. None of the reviewers are permitted to have applicants in the review pool, so any
McLaughlin Committee members (or UTMB faculty) who have applicants under review are ineligible from
participating in the review panel.
To help ensure that McLaughlin Postdoctoral Fellowships support the most meritorious candidates from
throughout the UTMB infectious diseases and immunology research community, the following policy was
established in FY 07. Multiple applications for postdoctoral fellowship support may be submitted by applicants
from a single UTMB laboratory, but only one fellowship will be awarded to any single laboratory each year.
Instructions for Mentor’s letter in support of a postdoctoral funding application
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Mentor’s Letter of Support Addenda:
Addendum #1: Record of Support
Please include this form with your letter. Failure to do so will invalidate your fellow’s application.
Please provide the following information about your former trainees (please repeat these panels as needed).
This will be useful in evaluating the training environment in your lab, and documenting training activities for the
T32 grant. Please list all trainees (from UTMB and if appropriate from previous appointments) for the past 10
years. Include current trainees at the top of the Table. For all trainees, please provide the publications they
co-authored based on the work completed by them during the period when they worked under your
supervision.
Trainee
Name
Status
(Past/
Current.)
Type
(Pre-doc,
postdoc,
Clinical)
Period
(m/yr to
m/yr)
Financial
Support
(Source & Yrs)
Current Position
Status
(Past/
Current.)
Type
(Pre-doc,
postdoc,
Clinical)
Period
(m/yr to
m/yr)
Financial
Support
(Source & Yrs)
Current Position
Status
(Past/
Current.)
Type
(Pre-doc,
postdoc,
Clinical)
Period
(m/yr to
m/yr)
Financial
Support
(Source & Yrs)
Current Position
Status
(Past/
Current.)
Type
(Pre-doc,
postdoc,
Clinical)
Period
(m/yr to
m/yr)
Financial
Support
(Source & Yrs)
Current Position
Status
(Past/
Current.)
Type
(Pre-doc,
postdoc,
Clinical)
Period
(m/yr to
m/yr)
Financial
Support
(Source & Yrs)
Current Position
Publications:
Trainee
Name
Publications:
Trainee
Name
Publications:
Trainee
Name
Publications:
Trainee
Name
Publications:
Instructions for Mentor’s letter in support of a postdoctoral funding application
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Addendum #2: Ranking of Current Applicant
Please include this form with your letter. Failure to do so will invalidate your fellow’s application.
Rank of this applicant among postdocs who have completed (or are completing) work in your lab).
Provide an alphabetical list of all postdocs who have been in your lab in the last 5 years:
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
Please state the position of the current applicant in this list (1 is best, last number is worst).
Position of applicant among these postdocs: _____________
Rank of this applicant among postdocs you know well.
Provide an alphabetical list of all UTMB postdocs who have served as co-authors on your publications, but who
have not worked directly in your lab.
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
___________
Please state the position of the current applicant in this list (1 is best, last number is worst).
Position of applicant among these postdocs: _____________