Patrizia Vannini, PhD, is a people connector, firm in the belief that it’s the critical ingredient to great science.

She learned that core principle as a postdoc in the Grant Review and Support Program (GRASP), where she has served as faculty advisor for the past seven years. She credits the program for helping her get her first KO1—on the first try—and is passionate about helping others do the same.

That first NIH award set her on a research track that continues in earnest. Her current focus: tracking the neurophysiology underlying the transition from predementia stages to clinical dementia based on changes in “meta-cognition,” the self-awareness of one’s own mental status. She is faculty for Education in C/T Science at Harvard Catalyst, associate scientist/investigator in neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

GRASP has a high success rate in terms of course graduates who are successfully awarded an NIH grant on the first try, like you were as a postdoc enrolled in the program. What’s the secret?

“I think great science happens when the right people meet.”

The overall success rate of GRASP enrollees achieving their first grant is 56%, but that number doesn’t tell the whole story. The success rate is actually considerably higher—72%—for those people who are the most active. It’s a longitudinal program, so people sometimes drop off because life comes in between, or they forget, or it’s too much. But the people who commit and stay the course [are generally successful.] We’ve seen some superstars who have come out of GRASP with not only an RO1, but they’re getting promoted or setting up their own labs as well.

I think individualized support for enrollees is the key to GRASP’s success. We tailor it to the people who connect with us, and we really encourage that. When people reach out saying “Hey, I have a roadblock here,” we try to brainstorm and come up with ways they can solve it and move on to become successful. Those people have a 72% success rate.

Mentorship and networking are key features of GRASP and of your own career. What’s their value in this context?

I think great science happens when the right people meet. In some sense, I see myself as a catalyst for connecting people who may have different ideas, different expertise, and backgrounds. That ties into increasing collegiality and sense of community.

That has inspired me throughout my career. I’ve had those moments when I’ve met people and it just clicks. You sit for hours and talk about science, and new ideas come up. I truly love when that happens. Also, when you talk to one person and then another person, and you’re like, “Wait a second. They have this in common; why don’t we put them together and see what happens?”

So much can happen over a cup of coffee or lunch, where you can just relax and talk.

Finding the right mentor can be daunting. Any advice for young investigators?

That is a tricky question. It’s a symbiotic relationship with your mentor. How can you create that in the best way? How can you both benefit and grow together out of it?  At the same time, as a mentee, you have to find your own research niche, your own independent area.

I think creating a network of mentors that can help you in different areas is valuable. Maybe your mentor is not the best person to advise you on writing grants, but there might be other senior people or people at the same level as you who can help you with that.

“I think creating a network of mentors that can help you in different areas is valuable.”

I did my PhD studies in Sweden, where I had an awesome supervisor, but he was not good at grant writing. He was tenure-track himself, so it was up to me to sustain my PhD work. I spent all these years writing grant applications, being awarded small grants here and there, and it taught me a valuable lesson: Grant writing is a skill set in itself. It’s not the same as science. You have to be prepared for rejection upon rejection, so resilience is a major part of it. It was a hard lesson, but a valuable one.

What would you like to instill upon early-career investigators in this current climate?

I would say—and this is also part of our workshops in GRASP—that even though NIH has been the place to go for grants, to not put all your eggs in one basket. Look at different sources: foundation grants, philanthropic grants, and more. It might be even more important now to diversify your salary, your efforts, and your research funding.

Many great opportunities are listed on the Harvard Catalyst website. We often list internal grants available through the [HMS] system or other opportunities specifically targeted for junior faculty.

Your first experience with GRASP was as a postdoc KL2 awardee back in 2012. How did you end up back at GRASP as an advisor?

When I started my KL2 I was automatically enrolled in GRASP, and it was just such a revelation. I remember thinking: This is how you should go about writing grants and managing your science program overall. It put everything that I had learned the hard way into context. So many aspects of the process were crystallized. GRASP helped me get my first K award, as the application was a primary focus of my coursework.

After I was awarded the grant, the position as GRASP advisor opened up. I applied in part because I wanted to pay it back. Part of it was the opportunity for community-building and networking, which was an important aspect of GRASP for me as a postdoc. It was not grant-writing per se, but just meeting other people, students who were in the same kind of boat, supporting each other, and going through the process together.

Over the seven years I’ve worked at GRASP, I’ve tried to increase these networking opportunities, creating different events where junior faculty meet. After one of our sessions, a woman came up to me and she told me how she had sat at a table at a GRASP workshop years before with two other women, and they had kept in contact over the years. They meet once a month over coffee or a glass of wine and just talk and support each other. They reach out to each other. I think that’s awesome.