Faculty Award Opportunities

The Office of Faculty Development and Affairs welcomes you to the new Faculty Awards Opportunities page. This information is intended to serve as a resource for Department Chairs and faculty by listing various internal and external Award opportunities. The Award opportunities listed here are not intended to be an exhaustive list but are Awards that the Dean’s office views as high value opportunities. 

This page is continuously updated to the best of our knowledge. As the information is subject to change, please refer to the awarding institutions’ websites to ensure the most current information. Award opportunities are listed below; open the panels for a brief description of the Award and a link to the Award website.

In addition, our office has created a downloadable chart listing  each award opportunity and their related specifics such as due dates, nomination information, if multiple nominations are allowed, and prize information if relevant.

Download chart (Word)

Download chart (Excel)

For additional campus and UW system award opportunities:

UW-Madison Institutional Nominations and Internal Competitions

Award names that contain an asterisk (*) are geared towards Basic & Translational Science Researchers

Early Career Faculty Awards

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AAMC Herbert Nickens Faculty Fellowship

The AAMC Herbert Nickens Faculty Fellowship award recognizes an outstanding early career faculty member who demonstrates leadership potential in addressing inequity in medical education and health care; demonstrated efforts in addressing educational, societal, and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States; and is committed to a career in academic medicine.

Monetary Award: $25,000 grant

AAMC Minority Faculty Leadership Development Seminar

The Minority Faculty Leadership Development Seminar brings together junior faculty from across the United States and provides participants with real-world guidance and tools for pursuing career advancement in academic medicine. The seminar will help participants develop key professional competencies that build skills in grant writing and communications, while expanding their network of colleagues and role models.

Association for Clinical and Translational Sciences Outstanding Trainee Award

The Association for Clinical and Translation Sciences Outstanding Trainee Award recognizes outstanding accomplishments of trainees at the pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and early faculty (K) level. This award recognizes those whose translational research progress will have either immediate impact or potential to impact policy, care or public health in the short term.

Basil O’Conor Starter Research Award *

The Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Awards (BOC) support early-career scientists embarking on independent research careers who are committed to fighting for the health of all moms and babies.

Monetary Award: $150,000 grant

Beckman Young Investigator *

The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Program provides research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences, particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of research in science.

Monetary Award: Grants are in the range of $600,000 over the term of the project

Burroughs Wellcome Fund (Career Award for Medical Scientists) *

The Career Awards for Medical Scientists (CAMS) is a highly competitive program that provides $700,000 awards over five years for physician-scientists, who are committed to an academic career, to bridge advanced postdoctoral/fellowship training and the early years of faculty service.

Monetary Award: $700,000 over 5 years

Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences *

The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health.

Monetary Award: $300,000 ($75,000/year for 4 years)

Pew Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research *

The Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research supports assistant professors of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of a cure for cancer.

Monetary Award: $300,000 ($75,000/year for 4 years)

Valle Scholar Awards *

Recognizing that outstanding, young, independent investigators are the source for future advances in the biomedical sciences and of their need for flexible, unrestricted funding to conduct their research, the Valle Scholars program makes grants of $300,000 – to be spent over a period of four years – to junior faculty carrying out basic biomedical research. Available only to investigators who have been nominated by institutions that have been selected by the Valle Foundation Board of Directors.

Monetary award: $300,000 over 4 years

Early or Mid-Career Faculty Awards

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Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Program *

The HHMI Investigator Program support more than 250 Investigators, located at more than 60 research institutions across the United States, who are widely known for their scientific discoveries, their innovation, and their success in pushing the bounds of knowledge in biomedical research.

Kauffman Seminar

The Kauffman Seminar Program is designed to give faculty, limited appointees, academic staff, and university staff who currently hold administrative positions a chance tot become more familiar with UW-Madison and its relationship with the UW System and to the State; to enhance their knowledge and skills and their campus-wide network of knowledgeable sources.

Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science*

Candidacy for the Nemmers Prize is open to physician-scientists whose body of research exhibits outstanding achievement in their disciplines are demonstrated by works of lasting significance. Individuals of all nationalities and institutional affiliations were eligible except current or recent members of the Northwestern University faculty and recipients of the Nobel Prize. Awarded biennially; next opportunity is in 2022.

National Academy of Medicine

Sponsored by the Interacademy Partnership. The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), established in 1970 under the name Institute of Medicine (IOM), is an independent organization of eminent professionals from diverse fields including health and medicine; the natural, social, and behavioral sciences; and beyond.

Vilas Early and Mid-Career Investigator Awards *

The Vilas Early and Mid-Career Investigator Awards are sponsored by UW-Madison. To recognize research and teaching excellence in faculty who are relatively early in their careers, or are mid-career. These awards provide between $25,000 and $100,000 in flexible funding over two years.

Awards geared towards Associate or full Professors

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow (honorary) *

The American Association for the Advancement of Science welcomes a member whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished and who has been a continuous member for the four-year period leading up to the year of nomination, may, by virtue of such meritorious contribution be elected a Fellow by the Council.

AAMC Mid-career Minority Faculty Leadership Seminar

The AAMC Mid-Career Minority Faculty Seminar is a leadership development program designed specifically for mid-career faculty who aspire to leadership positions in academic medicine. This unique blended-learning program takes a culturally responsive approach to address the specific needs of the participants including small group mentoring sessions and a CV review for career development planning. This Seminar consists of both virtual learning sessions/webinars and an in-person two and a half-day event.

Association for Clinical and Translational Science

  • ACTS Distinguished Educator Award
    • Recognizes a clinical and/or translational investigator who has distinguished him or herself as an educator, mentor and leader, resulting in significant scientific accomplishments by the next generation of clinical and translational researchers.
  • ACTS Distinguished Investigator Awards
    • 3 awards will be given for senior investigators (above age of 45) whose innovative research or leadership has had a major impact on or through clinical and translational science.
  • ACTS Award for Contributing to the Diversity and Inclusiveness of the Translational Workforce
    • This award has been created to recognize individuals who, through their careers of mentoring, policymaking, or team building have contributed to a more inclusive and diverse workforce. Success may be evidenced by a track record of contributing to career development of their own mentees, or to the workforce of their organization.
  • ACTS Award for Addressing Health Equity Through Partnership and Innovation Award
    • This award has been established by ACTS to acknowledge the importance of and to further catalyze the growth of research focused on health equity, injustice, and issues of disparity in care supporting the translation of research discoveries into clinical applications to practice and eventually widespread impact on health.
  • Team Science Award

This award has been established by ACTS to acknowledge and catalyze the growing importance of interdisciplinary teams to the translation of research discoveries into clinical applications and eventually widespread clinical practice.

Monetary Award: $1,000 honorarium

Link to website

Association of American Physicians

Election to the AAP is an honor extended to physicians with outstanding credentials in basic or translational biomedical research and is limited to 70 persons per year.

American Society for Clinical Investigation

The ASCI is dedicated to the advancement of research that extends our understandings and improves the treatment of diseases of all people, and members are committed to mentoring future generations of physician-scientists of diverse backgrounds and biomedical disciplines.

Breakthrough Prize *

For the 10th year, the Breakthrough Prize, recognized as the world’s largest science prize, will honor top scientists, handing out three prizes in Life Sciences, one in Fundamental Physics and one in Mathematics.

Monetary Award: $3 Million

Dickson Prize in Medicine *

Sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh. Nominees for the Dickson Prize in Medicine should be actively engaged in innovative, paradigm-shifting biomedical research that is worthy of significant and broad attention. This is a prize for someone whose career has been building, who is at an especially productive point currently, and whose research is—or will be—so influential that it deserves major recognition now. The recipient must be a U.S. citizen.

Monetary Award: $50,000

Harrington Prize *

The Harrington Prize is sponsored by The American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The Prize honors a physician-scientist who has moved since forward with achievements notable for innovation, creativity, and potential for clinical application.

Monetary Award: $20,000 honorarium

H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship *

The H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, funded by WARF in recognition of the leadership of the late WARF Trustee President H. I. Romnes, is designed to bridge the gap between the Research Committee’s initial research support for new faculty and the Mid-Career Award for Faculty Research. This award is intended to recognize and support faculty up to SIX years past their first promotion to a tenured position.

Monetary Award: $60,000 over five years

Kellet Mid-Career Award *

The Kellet Mid-Career award is comparable in competitiveness to the Romnes Faculty Fellowships and the WARF Professorships, but is intended to recognize and support mid-career faculty, seven to twenty years past their first promotion to a tenured position. The Mid-Career award was created to provide needed support and encouragement to faculty at a critical stage of their careers.

Monetary Award: $75,000 over 5 years

Lasker Foundation Awards *

  • The Lasker Awards recognize the contributions of researchers, clinician scientists, and public servants who have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, or prevention of disease.
    • Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award: For a fundamental discovery that opens up a new area of biomedical science.
    • Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award: For a major advance that improves the lives of many thousands of people.

Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science: For research accomplishments & scientific statesmanship that engender the deepest feelings of awe and respect.

Monetary Award: $250,000 honorarium

Macy Faculty Scholar Award

Macy Faculty Scholars are mid-career nursing and medical school faculty who are committed to careers in health professional education, are innovators, and have shown promise as future leaders.

Monetary Award: $100,000

National Academy of Sciences *

Members are elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive.

Slesinger Awards for Excellence in Mentoring

The Slesinger Awards for Excellence in Mentoring recognize individuals who provide excellent mentoring for women, trans, or non-binary tenure-track faculty at UW-Madison.

WARF Named Professorship *

The WARF Named Professorship program provides recognition for distinguished research contributions of the UW-Madison faculty. The awards are intended to honor those faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities.

Monetary Award: $100,000

Warren Alpert Foundation Prize *

The mission of the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize is to recognize and honor one or more scientists whose scientific research achievements have led to the prevention, cure or treatment of human disease or disorders, and/or whose research constitutes a seminal scientific finding that holds great promise of ultimately changing our understanding of or ability to treat disease.

Monetary Award: $500,000

Award Opportunities for Female Faculty

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AAMC Mid-career Women Faculty Leadership Development Seminar

This highly engaging three day seminar is designed to provide mid-career women faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to support their continued progress along the path to leadership in academic medicine and science. The seminar covers organizational leadership topics and career advancing strategies that are essential for effective leaders throughout various mission-critical activities.

AAMC Early Career Women Faculty Leadership Development Seminar

This popular and highly interactive seminar provides women at the assistant professor level with foundational leadership knowledge and skills that will enable them to achieve their career goals and thrive as a successful leader in academic medicine and science.

The seminar will present a foundation for modeling leadership behavior, and participants will learn critical skills and strategies to assist them as they prepare for their next advancement and promotion opportunity. Due to the content focus, applicants must be actively looking to advance to the next stage of their career.

ELAM The Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® Fellowship

Sponsored by Drexel University. The (ELAM®) program is a year-long part-time fellowship for women faculty in schools of medicine, dentistry, public health and pharmacy.

Marion Spencer Fay Award

Sponsored by Drexel University. The Marion Spencer Fay Award is a national award that is given annually to a woman physician and/or scientist who has made an exceptionally significant contribution to health care as a practitioner, medical educator, administrator and/or research scientist and who exhibits significant future potential.

Monetary Award: $10,000

Vanderbilt Prize

Sponsored by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Vanderbilt Prize winners are women who have made significant contributions to the science of medicine.

Monetary Award: $25,000 honorarium