Goals
- Explore various career pathways in clinical and translational science.
- Learn about alternative funding and collaboration opportunities beyond NIH sources and partners.
- Explore practical strategies to acquire funding, nurture partnerships, and sustain a career at an academic health center.
In these webinars, mid-career researchers from academic health centers will share their perspectives and experiences on navigating their career pathways in the current funding and collaboration environment, which means seeking sources in and beyond the NIH. Focusing on cross-cutting core competencies of communication and mentorship, each one-hour session will include short presentations and a discussion moderated by a researcher.
Session dates
Session 1: Communication
April 29, 2026 | 4:00pm ET
Registration deadline: April 28, 2026 | 12:00pm ET
This session will focus on the important role of communication, exploring how to best navigate a pathway across alternative funding and collaboration environments. We will discuss common challenges for communicating your research and its impact with different funders and partners, along with strategies for adapting your communication approaches.
Details about future webinars will be announced.
Meet the Presenters
Joe Kossowsky, PhD, MMSc, is a clinical investigator in the Division of Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School (HMS). His NIH-funded research focuses on the interplay between chronic pain, sleep, and substance use in adolescents, leveraging wearable sensor data, ecological momentary assessment, and digital health approaches to develop just-in-time adaptive interventions. He received his PhD in clinical psychology and completed postdoctoral fellowships in pediatric pain, biomedical informatics, and sleep medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and HMS.
Cindy H. Liu, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, director of the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Program, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School in the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry. She also serves as the director of the NICU Parent Mental Health Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research focuses on the measurement and mechanisms of stress and its impact on mental health across key points within the developmental lifespan. She is currently a principal investigator for several studies, including the Perinatal Experiences and COVID-19 Effects (PEACE) Study, a longitudinal study that seeks to understand the experiences of pregnant and postpartum women throughout the pandemic, and the COVID-19 Adult Resilience Experiences Study (CARES) which focuses on mental health and well-being in young adults. Her work has been funded by foundations and philanthropy and featured in various outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, and CBS News. She received her degree in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital and postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Meet the Moderator
Gabriela Hobbs, MD, is the clinical director of the leukemia service and director of the myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Hobbs was born and raised in Mexico City, and completed her undergraduate degree in biotechnology and psychology at Tufts University. She completed her internal medicine training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship training in hematology and oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Hobbs joined the faculty at MGH in 2014 where she established an MPN clinic and research program.
Time commitment
One-hour sessions on Zoom.
Audience
These sessions are designed for early-career researchers from the clinical and translational science (CTS) community who are interested in pursuing funding beyond NIH sources, developing a diverse funding portfolio, and collaborating across sectors and industries. In addition, attendees who are broadly interested in learning about what it looks like to build and sustain a CTS career by acquiring alternative funding sources and partnerships are welcome to participate.
Eligibility
There are no eligibility requirements.
We believe that the research community is strengthened by understanding how a number of factors including gender identity, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, culture, religion, national origin, language, disability, and age shape the environment in which we live and work, affect each of our personal identities, and impacts all areas of human health.