The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Building Up the Nerve is a podcast for neuroscience trainees that takes you through the components of a grant application with successful awardees. We know that applying for NIH funding can be daunting, but we’re here to help—it’s our job!
In this episode, our grantee guests discuss the importance of letters of recommendation, letters of support, and institutional commitment letters – and the difference between them! Our guests provide advice on how to approach the appropriate people to secure these components to strengthen their application.
Featuring Sikoya Ashburn, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Christopher Chen, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, and Corey Harwell, PhD, Assistant Professor, Harvard University.
Resources
Longwood chorus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCVmSjOI6I
Early Career Reviewer Program: https://public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers/BecomeAReviewer/ECR
Transcript available at http://ninds.buzzsprout.com/.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Building Up the Nerve is a podcast for neuroscience trainees that takes you through the components of a grant application with successful awardees. We know that applying for NIH funding can be daunting, but we’re here to help—it’s our job!
In this episode, our grantee guests discuss the importance of letters of recommendation, letters of support, and institutional commitment letters – and the difference between them! Our guests provide advice on how to approach the appropriate people to secure these components to strengthen their application.
Featuring Sikoya Ashburn, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Christopher Chen, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, and Corey Harwell, PhD, Assistant Professor, Harvard University.
Resources
Longwood chorus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCVmSjOI6I
Early Career Reviewer Program: https://public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers/BecomeAReviewer/ECR
Transcript available at http://ninds.buzzsprout.com/.
Welcome to the national Institute of neurological disorders and strokes, building up a podcast for neuroscience trainees that takes you through the components of a grant application with successful awardees. We know that applying for NIH funding can be daunting, but we are here to help. It's our job.
Marguerite Matthews:Hello, I'm Marguerite Matthews, a scientific program manager at NINDS.
Lauren Ullrich:And I'm Lauren Ullrich, a program director at N I N D S. And were your hosts today. In this episode, we're talking about letters of recommendation, letters of support, and the description of institutional environment and institutional commitment and how they are different and what they are. And of course, our disclaimer still applies everything we talk about may only be relevant for NINDS. So if you're applying to a different NIH Institute, it's always best to talk with them about they're policies.
Marguerite Matthews:Our guests today are Dr. Sikoya Ashburn, Dr. Christopher Chen, and Dr. Corey Harwell. So let's get started with our introductions.
Sikoya Ashburn:So I'm Sikoya Ashburn. I'm a first year post-doctoral fellow at the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In terms of NIH awards that I've received and or applied for. I started my graduate school experience on the T 32, which is awarded through the institution. I also applied for an RO1 on diversity supplements, as well as a T 01 and the most recent award I've applied for, it was the F99/K00 D span award. So I've applied to a few NIH awards. I didn't receive most of them on the first trial, but I did resubmit and receive them on the second, in terms of my research, I'm interested in the cerebellum and how it relates to higher cognitive functions and neuro developmental disorders. In graduate school, I studied the cerebellum's involvement with reading disability or developmental dyslexia and children, where I tested a controversial theory that the cerebellum is the primary cause for the reading impairment seen in children with dyslexia. When for that, I used a combination of functional conductivity and activation. Since then, I've extended my research to use graph theory, which is a measure that can describe connectivity at a network level. And I'm using this to study how the cerebellum interplay with critical networks and children with ADHD, as well as their working memory abilities. And I'm using a combination of structural and functional conductivity for that. And lastly, in terms of a hobby outside of science, I'm really big into Latin dance. So salsa, bachata, merengue, anything, I love it all.
Lauren Ullrich:I love that. I can't dance to save my life. So I'm always in awe of those that can[laughter]
Christopher Chen:I'm Christopher Chen, I'm just doing fourth year postdoc at Harvard medical school in the laboratory of Wade Regehr. I also study the cerebellum. It's great to have another cerebellum person on the cast. I've been studying the cerebellum since graduate school. I've actually, when I started graduate school on the cerebellum was thought to be a motor structure to deal with motor coordination. I looked at cerebellar outputs underlying that. And then more recently we've kind of had to rewrite the books a little bit and say that the cerebellum is actually has a blood of non-motor roles. I think most famously, people have put a specific mutation into the principal cells, the cerebellum, and found that you can recapitulate autistic phenotype in mice. So what my research program kind of revolves around is trying to see what the pathways are from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain, to sub-serve all sorts of non-motor behaviors. And that's kind of what I've been working on for most of my postdoc and a little bit more than that, but words that have applied to in graduate school, I applied for the F 31, I think several times I was triaged. Every time never ended up getting it. In post- doc, I applied for the F32, and I was lucky enough to receive that. And then most recently applied for the K99. And I also received that. And it was the second time around that it took to get both of those awards. Let's see hobbies outside of work. I enjoy music a lot. There's a ukulele behind me. And I actually, I sing in a choir in the area that we work in the Long wood medical area. There's actually a choir the Longwood c horus. I t's really special. It's made up of scientists and doctors in the area and we all sing together. Unfortunately now we're not really singing together. W e're t rying t o do everything virtual, but that's how I spend some of my time outside of l ab.
Marguerite Matthews:So have you all made any YouTube videos singing together?
Christopher Chen:Actually, so we've been trying to put together some of these virtual choruses, it's very tech, heavy, everyone kind of records their selves, and then we put everything together and post and performance together virtually. Yeah, so we have some YouTube things.
Lauren Ullrich:We'll put it in the show notes. And Corey?
Corey Harwell:Corey Harwell, currently an assistant professor a nd t he neurobiology department at Harvard medical school. And I'm a developmental neurobiologist. So my research program is largely focused on understanding the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that provide the neural diversity that we get in the developing brain. We largely focus on the forebrain and in particular in the cortex, but recently the lab has become really interested in the basal forebrain and specifically the septal nuclei a nd the basal forebrain, which p roduce a really diverse compliment of GABAergic projection neurons that are thought to kind of provide this link between the limbic system and the kind of higher cognitive areas, including the cortex and other structures, I guess. So I was actually many years ago, a neuroscience scholar and f or more recent awards at the start of my first year as a faculty member was awarded a K01 and currently have two R01's, one with an NINDS and one NIMH R01. So my very first R0 1, was triaged. And actually I think it was both a shocking and a highly educational experience. And I think one of the things that really helped me and learning about grant writing and the grant writing process is the early career reviewer program that the NIH does. That was actually, I think, more helpful than any individual advice, but actually seeing the process working in person and hobbies. I guess I actually don't have many interesting hobbies during the pandemic, and it's mostly been my love of cooking and eating food and doing that with my family and for my family. So I'm the primary cook for my household.
Lauren Ullrich:Any favorite recipe you've made recently?
Corey Harwell:I think we did a halibut not so long ago. So it was a halibut with this white wine sauce. That was a pretty big hit. I think it was for an occasion, some kind of special occasion that we had.
Marguerite Matthews:Now, did you get on the sourdough bread making kick that everyone else seemed to be doing in the pandemic?
Corey Harwell:No, actually funny enough, we don't eat a lot of bread[ laughter].So we do a lot of rice [laughter] is our carb of choice i n our house. Yeah. There was not a lot of bread bacon going on for us.
Lauren Ullrich:It's probably for the best since apparently there were like flour shortages throughout the country![Laughter].
:Can you tell us the differences between the various letters in these applications, what they are, the letter of support versus the letter of recommendation, and did you know the difference when you were preparing to apply for these respective awards? So I guess I can talk since I've probably had experience with both the recommendation and support letters, I tend to think about a lot of training funding mechanisms that persons done and I've done in the past is kind of focused on the individual so that the grant is really for the individual and that individual's training. Whereas a lot of the R one grants are for the project. And I think the letters are kind of tailored to that in the same way. So the letters of recommendation are about the qualifications and the quality of the individual applicant for particularly for training award, where the letters of support are about individuals, roles in supporting the success of that particular project.
Speaker 3:That's how I would break it up. Yeah. I think one of my old mentors kind of described the letters of support as well, How are you going to prove to anyone that you know, how to do this thing that you're proposing is fancy new technique. That's really where the letter of support comes in to help you out. Or you need somebody with a known expertise to say that yes, this applicant is able to do that, or I will give them the support that they will succeed at this particular task.
Sikoya Ashburn:Great. And so starting with the letters of recommendation, how did you decide who to ask for letters of recommendation? So for me, I really want it to choose people who I've worked with for a decent amount of time who could speak to some of my characteristics that would be actionable for the grant itself to show that I would be persevering and willing to put in the work, because anyone can write a letter of support, but to have a letter from someone who you spent a decent amount of time with our worked on a project with, they can give more detailed descriptions of you as a person, and also can speak to more about, instead of just listing like your CV or awards, they can describe how you got there, make you seem more like a person instead of a resume.
Christopher Chen:I had definitely had the same kind of approach. I also actually asked my mentor. I had kind of a short list of people that I was considering asking for letters of recommendation. And I asked my mentor, well, like what do you think of this list? Or do you think these people would write me a good letter and actually had a lot of insights because I guess in those faculty meetings, people do talk about their graduate students and their post-docs. So there's a lot of insight that your mentor can give you who is a good letter writer and who has, um, really positive feelings about you and support.
Speaker 1:What kind of information did you give your recommendation letter writers in order to help them help[laughter] you in giving you a letter that had all the information that you felt was needed in there
Christopher Chen:For letters of recommendation? I usually specific aims page, the best case would be just if we could sit down and talk about it and just kind of run through like what exactly the grant is you're applying for and the general flow of the project, and then where you think your weaknesses are like, if they can address anything in the letter itself. I think that my best experiences have been when you're able to kind of sit down or have like a straight dialogue with the person that's going to be what writing your letter, and then you can specifically lay out where you are and then what would be the best way they can help you.
Speaker 1:Also echoing off of that. I always caveat this with I'm a type a personality. I did it in terms of guidelines. I would provide like bullet points of not just the specific aims, but also the experiences that I've had with them that I want them to include in the letter and like specific keywords from the FOA that I wanted them to highlight or talk about. So I did attempt to give them, I guess, some more direct guidelines as well.
Marguerite Matthews:From a faculty perspective. Can you talk about what you expect of your trainees when they're thinking about applying for these types of award? Um, whether it's an eye turn, not what you would expect of them, um, in terms of information that they provide for you to write the letter of support or recommendation as a sponsor?
Corey Harwell:Yes. So I would say first and foremost is advanced notice so that we have enough time to actually put together a strong letter and all of the components they mentioned. I think the most helpful is to have a conversation about what each person's expectations are. And in particular, in thinking about the K 0 1 letter, which is, if I remember it's kind of a combination of a recommendation letter, but also this letter of kind of commitment to a particular person's role as a mentor or part of a mentoring committee, and to make sure that they can speak directly on their roles, into how they'll contribute to your training over the course of the grant or the fellowship.
Marguerite Matthews:Do you have any advice for trainees on how to explain in that application a time where they may have had a bad relationship with their mentor or the relationship went bad at some point during the training? Um, so for instance, a trainee who may have had to switch labs, should they be getting, um, a letter from that person or have someone else write a letter that maybe explains the reason why they had to leave the lab and go somewhere else?
:Can I answer this question from the perspective of less of bad mentor, but more of filling in, I guess, gaps or things of that nature? So, one way to think about it, I think is these are all areas in which you can improve, whether it was a bad mentor who can't write you a letter, or you don't have many publications, any form of attributes that could be like seen as a negative by the reviewers.
Sikoya Ashburn:I think it's important to keep in mind that the goal of the grant, is to show off the resources that you have to complete your training. So like, yes, you have these like negative attributes are not as appealing attributes, but you can use that to your advantage by describing that in your training plan, as ways that you will improve and advance as a graduate student or post-doc and improve yourself to be a better independent researcher. So that said, I would say to not spend time necessarily trying to explain the core or negative portions, but spend time on the other side of that in explaining how you can improve yourself as an applicant.
:I think that's really great advice. Um, and you know, it's also always helpful to, you know, have this discussion with your current mentor, somebody who you do have a good relationship with now and brainstorm ways to address this past, um, relationship.
Speaker 1:Um, it probably should be addressed in some manner just because it is such, um, an expectation that you will get a letter from your grad advisor or your postdoc advisor, but, you know, you don't have to go into detail. You can just say things very plainly, um, and then have someone else who was familiar with your work during that period, be the one to write the letter. And this happens even in other situations, like let's say your advisor passed away and be able to provide a letter. And so you would just note that and have someone else speak to that experience. And this is a person thing that your current advisor can also address it in their letter, if you, if you don't feel comfortable addressing it.
:So in terms of the letters of support, let's see, we talked a little bit about what should go in them, but how do I even know if I need a letter of support
Speaker 4:Or thinking about it, at least from the perspective of an RO 1 type grant? I always think about my lab and what I have in my lab and what we have exclusive access to both in terms of personnel and expertise and anything outside of that, whether it's a key piece of equipment, whether it's someone with the expertise to either run or analyze the particular experiment that rises to me as someone that I'd like to have a letter of support from. So if it's someone that has equipment, or if it's even a core facility, you know, within your department or at your institution, having a letter that states that you will have access to this equipment to do these key experiments, I think is something that you'd want to have a letter for, for, I think my first R O 1 in which we were starting to do a lot more sequencing. So a lot more next generation sequencing, even though we didn't have like an extensive publication history of what those types of experiments, you know, we were starting to do them in the lab, but we still got letters from people that we would use as consultants for the analysis of some of the bioinformatic data. So those types of things I think will rise to the level. So anything that you think might give a reviewer doubt about whether you could do it within your lab and within your kind of established expertise, you want to get a letter of support for any of those.
Speaker 1:What kinds of things do you think make a good letter?
Speaker 4:I would say like many things and managing collaborations and science in general, that communication is key. So at least with letters of support, letting them know as much as possible about the project, you know, presumably this is someone who you've already had some kind of relationship with before, or at least start thinking about, uh, forging some kind of collaborative relationship and some letters I've even, you know, I've sent drafts of the aims in which I thought a particular collaborator might contribute to let them know. And then also to let them know how you see their role and their contribution to the particular project. And then what I think makes a strong letter is again, the details, you know, being able to communicate exactly what that person's role is in the project, how they'll contribute even the particular experiments or resources that they'll make available for the project that will make it successful
Christopher Chen:For letters of support, definitely have to share a lot of the projects. And you want to specifically say there's this particular technique or something or something very specific that you need them to address in a letter.
Corey Harwell:One thing that I meant to mention, particularly from core facilities, they quite often have a form letter, but I think it is important to tailor the letter for your project. So again, I think it's important that even if it's a core to communicate with that person so that they can talk about the specifics of the project, you know, all of the other information about the capabilities of the core and that's behavior core imaging, but then how it will suit the specifics of your particular project, I think is important so that it doesn't end up being kind of generic.
Speaker 1:Then in terms of on the more training side, we often see letters of support from advisory committees or mentoring committees and the K grants. And I was wondering if any of you included that in your applications?
Corey Harwell:So I did. And in fact, I delayed submitting my care ward until I actually started my faculty position because I wanted to be able to actually establish relationships and see who would be willing to help me out, who would be willing to serve in those roles so that it would be a legitimate commitment that I was getting as I was putting together the grant. And for that, actually thought about the experiments that we were proposing to do and who in the department that could help on that side for the scientific side, but then also on the career component. So things that I'd never done, like run a lab, you know, who are my colleagues that I could actually go to that would be willing to sit down once a month and just talk about the practical advice of, you know, how many times do you meet with the people in your lab? How many times do you do one-on-one meetings? And those kinds of practical aspects. So I think again, it's kind of a critical component as to being able to communicate those things. Yeah. I think another thing that pops up is when you do your first submission and the summary statements come back and then the reviewers will kind of point out all the little weaknesses and that that's kind of where you can use a letter of support to patch those up. A lot of the times, you're not even aware that certain things might be issues. There's been like a couple of techniques that I've used in the past that never happened to publish on. So there's no real track record of me being an expert on them. So it came up in one of my summary statements that has no track record. And I was like, Oh, that's a surprise. I've actually been doing this for many years. So that's where a letter of support that somebody knows me or somebody even has expertise. So we just bring that in patches, everything up. And then your application becomes all the more stronger, because if you had this unknown ACE in the hole, it's just waiting to be kind of deployed. Yeah. The summary statements almost tell you where you want to apply these letters.
Speaker 2:That's a really great point. You're putting a lot into these applications and you think you've covered all the bases, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know, or you don't know how to convince reviewers that you're capable of doing this. And I really liked that you use the summary statement, um, not as a mark on your good name or that they're out to get you, but really they're trying to get you to think more deeply about your science and how you're able to build your own confidence.
Christopher Ashburn:Yeah. I think some of the best grant advice I got from Wade, my current mentor was your first application. Jay expect failure is a key, just say straight up, you're not going to get it. The chances of you getting are extremely low. All you laughter] really want to do is get within striking distance for your re submission, which was like, it's completely true. But like once you get your summary statements back becomes a, it's a very tangible kind of process now because you're a supplied a bullet point list of all your weaknesses that you can address. And that's a lot easier to deal with then this big amorphous thing that is applying for a whole project and getting a whole team together,
Speaker 2:I think it also makes the case for having other people review your application before you submit it and getting feedback from people. Um, perhaps someone who doesn't really even know your science, but can speak to the clarity in which you've written your proposal or someone who is an expert in your field and says, okay, these things really need to be tightened up and perhaps, maybe challenge you in how you're thinking about things. It doesn't mean you have to change your whole outlook, but it gives you a better appreciation of how to make your claim, how to make it clear and hopefully be able to convince other people like the reviewers that you are capable of doing the science. And we talk a lot about on this podcast, having people who are going to criticize you or going to critique you before the reviewers get the chance to do it. Um, I think he can be difficult for trainees to receive this kind of feedback. Uh, it may hurt your feelings, but ultimately it will help you to explain yourself better and, um,
Speaker 1:Allow you the room to understand what's really important about the things that you're talking about. And so Sikoya or Corey, did you have a similar experience of changing anything about either what you asked your letters of recommendation or letters of support to talk about in response to the summary statement or the reviews you got back?
Sikoya Ashburn:Is still for my case, one of the comments that the reviewers had was that they wanted a particular element of my projects to be better at presented in this case, it was specific to reading and math disability. So I proposed to visit a lab that specializes in that specifically for neuroimaging and children, in which case I would receive training, but also have the opportunity to network. And I guess mingle with people in the field, not only gained some technical expertise, but also to kind of grow my network and particularly for the F 99 that was, I think, advantageous because part of that grant is putting yourself in the position so that you can find a post-doc shortly after your graduate school experience. So having that opportunity to go and network with labs and give a presentation for a completely different lab and get their feedback on my project, that was pretty valuable and a good idea slash comment from t he r eviewers.
Corey Harwell:I think my first R one application, I got letters, and I think this is where I've learned the hard lesson about having specifics. There were certain aspects of the project that, you know, we hadn't done and I'd gotten a letter, but it was a pretty generic letter from a collaborator. And one of the critiques from the reviewers was like, you know, this person says their willing to help, but nothing about like how specifically their going to actually help with the success of this line of experiments and this project, it was just like, I have expertise here and thanks for letting me know you're applying for this. So I think that the lesson that I learned there is, again, just being able to both communicate the expectations that I have for different collaborators or consultants and being specific about that and helping them to be specific about that in the letters.
Speaker 1:Great. Okay. So now I'm going to shift a little bit. So another piece of the training related awards is this letter of institutional environment for fellowships or institutional commitment for the K awards. And I was wondering if one of you wanted to give us a short overview of what that letter is and what it should say. So for the institutional commitment letter, it's very easy to end up with a generic letter that they just have sitting on their desk. I would highly recommend avoiding that because it reads as generic as it is. So for mine, at least I added more details or suggest it more details for them related to my research and how the university is, useful specifically for my project. So it's still included like the general statistics of how their graduate students are doing and where previous graduate students are now, but it also included about half of it, at least more specific details about me and my project. And since I do neuro imaging that included describing the neuro imaging core and my ability to access it and different career development or professional development opportunities that the university offered different resources that the lab has, that are unique to my particular lab, things of that nature
Speaker 3:Add to that. I, I reached out to the department and I had a conversation and then they provided me with a letter. So it was not quite as, I think, as targeted as say the letters of support or for sure, not like the letters of recommendation, but I felt like it was a little bit more out of my hands, but it was a nice letter.
:[music playing]
Speaker 1:All right. Thank you all for sharing your wisdom today. Can I ask each of you to share one last piece of parting advice for future applicants? So, one thing that I think I didn't actually mention for like my description and I do want to put on the floods, but then there was science scholars program. It's a great diversity program offered through SFN, but the money comes from NIH and they offer mentoring. They offer funds for not research, but professional development related activities. And the community itself is great. It's a great support network. They offer webinars and seminars that are extremely useful for, regardless of whether you're staying in academia or considering leaving highly recommend applying. And the application is usually in the spring.
:Thank you for bringing that up. I am a proud NSP alum and current mentor. So I'm happy that you plugged this really important program instead of me having to do it, I've been seeming bias because I oversee that program as an NINDS staff. So I'll echo that in also being both an NSP mentor and NSP mentor, I think at some point, not this past year but the year before also the reviewer the applications and its the terrific program, I could tell a story about how my first mentor was a letter writer for my faculty job applications because of the relationship that we developed. And it worked out pretty well. Yeah. I guess you turned out all right.
Speaker 1:You're not doing so bad. Christopher, what about you? You have some advice.
Speaker 3:I think just talking to people, having conflict, direct conversations with your mentors about
Speaker 4:What you need and anybody that'll support you, and don't be afraid to ask for help. I think that's one of the real nice things about academia is you can go around in your institution and find some people that will support you. Most people, I think I've come across are extremely helpful and even surprisingly more helpful than you can possibly imagine. You're usually overwhelmed by people's generosity. Yeah, I would just add on one more time, I think just for grant processes in particular for new faculty and starting out with their first grant applications, is that they're a bit overwhelmed by how foreign the process is and kind of not understanding how things work. And I think it definitely serves you to reach out to your colleagues and make those connections so you can better understand it. And then also, hopefully the NIH still does this, but the early career reviewer program, I think is tremendously helpful and good because I think that was for me really eye opening experience, where you get to see in the room, how the sausage of scoring and making decisions about funding grants actually happens.
Speaker 1:I would also add to not be discouraged by the reviewers comments. Some of them can be phrased a bit harsh. I highly recommend just taking a step back from that. Whenever you do read the comments and then figure out how you can best address them because their rejection doesn't mean, no, it just means not yet. So try again.
Speaker 2:Thank you for saying that. And we did not pay our guests today to say these things. So it's not just the NIH staff telling you these things either in a podcast or in conversations with you. It's coming from folks who are in a similar situation, they're down in the trenches with you. So Lauren, do you have any advice for our listeners?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Let's just continue on this theme of community. I think it's very important to have your people to build your community that can come through formal programs like neuroscience scholars program. It can come through your graduate program, your postdoc association, your lab, but no academic is an Island and people succeed through the sharing of knowledge and wisdom and techniques and supplies and all that stuff. And so spend that time in developing your community and your support network, and it will really pay off in your future. What about you, Marguerite?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I think it's important to recognize that this application is yours. It's not anyone else's. So it's important that the folks who are contributing to your application, whether it be the institutional or your mentor or a collaborator that they are speaking about, you, your abilities and your interests moving forward and not just basing it on any random graduate student or post-doc, um, it's not a plug and play. This really is about you and your future, and you should feel empowered to write your application in such a way that others advocate, um, supporting it in the same way.
Lauren Ullrich:Well, that's all we have time for today on building up the nerve. So thank you to our guests this week for sharing their expertise and thank you to NINDS program director, Dr. Bob Riddle, who composed our theme song and music. We'll see you next time for the last episode of the season, where we tackle the resubmission process,
Marguerite Matthews:And you can find past episodes of this podcast and more on grant applications, resources on the web at ninds.nih.gov. And you can follow us on Twitter at NINDSdiversity and@NINDSfunding. You can also email us your questions at NINDSNervePod@nih.gov. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. We'll see you next time.