Message from our Directors

At ChEM-H/IMA, we believe that the best way to push the boundaries of our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying human health is to leverage the power of diversity: diversity of disciplines - life, physical and clinical sciences - and most importantly, diversity of people.

As we transform human health through new discoveries, we simultaneously seek to contribute to the transformation of the biomedical workforce by increasing the diversity of highly skilled scientists in the pipeline. This goal has guided the design of our previous training programs. The ChEM-H Chemistry-Biology Interface training program gives graduate students the opportunity to challenge boundaries between disciplines to solve big problems in human health within a community whose diversity grows every year as we better reach talent from prospective graduate student populations traditionally under-represented in STEM. Similarly, we train and support a diverse cohort of undergraduates with our ChEM-H undergraduate scholar program, which provides the necessary preliminary training to level the playing field in getting started conducting research within Stanford labs. Following in line with these established programs, we are delighted to announce a pilot program aimed at helping passionate folks traverse the gap between completing an undergraduate degree and matriculating into competitive graduate programs. 

The Sarafan ChEM-H/IMA Postbaccalaureate Program in Target Discovery seeks to strengthen the competitiveness of our interns in PhD admissions by providing research training in Stanford labs and professional development activities to support their graduate application packages. Over two years, our selected interns will receive substantial research experience working on projects aligned with the ChEM-H/IMA mission of innovating to transform human health while mentored by senior graduate students or postdocs in Stanford labs. In addition, interns will engage in workshops and activities to develop skills outside of the laboratory that are necessary for success in graduate studies. In this way, we hope to diversify the pool of admitted students at the most competitive PhD programs by including students who missed out on the research opportunities and/or resources needed to prepare for graduate studies during their undergraduate education. We know access to these critical preparations is irrefutably inequitable in the current academic landscape, and therefore, we especially welcome and encourage applications from people in groups that were historically under-represented and/or excluded from academia, including but not limited to women+/gender minorities, racial and ethnic minorities, folks from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and people with disabilities.

Join us in our commitment to diversifying the pipeline of scientific trainees doing transformational human health research.

Sincerely,

Chaitan Khosla, Director, Innovative Medicines Accelerator
Carolyn Bertozzi, Director, Sarafan ChEM-H