Deadline Approaches for Research Enabling Grants Program: Provides Support to Primary Caregivers, September 28, 2007, Harvard Public Health NOW

Theresa Betancourt in the field in northern Uganda

Theresa Betancourt (l) in the field in northern Uganda

Theresa Betancourt, assistant professor of child health and human rights at HSPH, spends a lot of time in Africa, where she investigates the mental health needs of children who have experienced war or other adversities, such as growing up in a family affected by HIV/AIDS. The demands are significant. Beyond the usual challenges of executing a study, Betancourt faces obstacles not presented in a Bostonian office setting. She travels to refugee and displacement camps, sometimes in regions still experiencing conflict. In the past, she has worked in Ethiopia, northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, Albania, and the Russian Federation. Soon, she plans to travel to Rwanda, which is recovering from a genocide. And while Betancourt works to help children in countries around the world, she is also raising her own.

Which is why she sought and received support from the Research Enabling Grants program, a pilot program intended to provide scholars who are primary care givers with financial support to enable research that might be impacted by significant child care or adult-dependent care obligations.

The program, run by Harvard's Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, is accepting applications for the next rounds of funding. Upcoming deadlines are October 5, 2007, and March 3, 2008. Tenure-track faculty and benefits-eligible postdoctoral fellows, either male or female, who are primary caregivers are eligible. The one-year grants are up to $75,000 and are intended to support the hiring of staff to help in the laboratory setting; purchasing of equipment that would enable more efficient research; and bringing a dependent and caregiver on extended field work.

Betancourt used the funding that she received to hire a full-time research coordinator, who will help manage the details for planning the Rwanda project. The project will investigate the nexus between HIV/AIDS and mental health needs.

"The REG support to hire a coordinator for my research has helped me immensely. It has already greatly reduced the burden I face in carrying off this tightrope balancing act of parenting and international field research," said Betancourt.

In addition to Betancourt, HSPH Associate Professor Dolores Acevedo-Garcia and Research Fellow Marina Marinkovic also have received funding from REG. Acevedo-Garcia investigates health disparities. Marinkovic studies the relationship between protein structures and the mechanics of red blood cells. She hired a visiting scholar to aid her experiments using funding from the REG program.

Said Marianne Wessling-Resnick, chair of the HSPH Committee on the Concerns of Women Faculty, "This program provides an excellent opportunity to achieve research goals that might otherwise not be attainable while tending to the needs of one's family. All faculty and postdoctoral fellows should be aware of the availability of this avenue of support so that they might better face the challenges of field work and laboratory research agendas, while balancing their role as primary caregiver to dependent family members."

Questions about the program may be sent to Fiona Chin in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity: fiona_chin@harvard.edu.

Other Work/Life Resources

2007-08 Child Care Scholarships

Deadline: October 10
Harvard's Child Care Scholarships provide financial assistance for full- or part-time child care.

Dependent Care Fund

Deadline: December 3
The Dependent Care Fund for Short-Term Professional Travel is intended to provide financial assistance to scholars who would like to travel for a professional event that will advance their academic careers and who also have child care or adult-dependent care obligations.

Also see: Women in Science.