Statement of Purpose and Description of Fellowship
The Robert L. Mayock Student Research Fellowship will provide opportunities for medical students and undergraduate students in their senior year of college to work full-time for 8-10 weeks during the summer/fall in one of the research laboratories of the Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Division of the University of Pennsylvania. Students from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as from other institutions are eligible to apply. Prior to applying, candidates are asked to contact a Penn PACCD Investigator with whom they would like to work in order to confirm that a suitable research project exists. The fellowship experience will also include attendance at the daily clinical and research conferences of the Division and presentation of the candidate’s work to a Division research conference. Accepted applicants will receive a stipend of $4,000. Applications for 2025 will be accepted until March 1, 2025.
This fellowship honors Robert L. Mayock, MD, the “Father of Pulmonary Medicine at Penn”, who founded the division at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, one of the first pulmonary divisions in the nation. Dr. Mayock trained more than 180 pulmonary physicians during his career, many of whom are today’s leaders in the field of academic and clinical pulmonary medicine. He was recognized as a caring, dedicated and compassionate physician. His professional colleagues recognized him as a trailblazer in chest medicine and for all who trained under him, Dr. Mayock taught them the character of a good physician: to always respect patients and to consider the whole person and not just the symptoms that made the patient ill. Through the generosity of an anonymous donor, the Robert L. Mayock Student Research Fellowship was established to preserve his legacy and recognize his many contributions to pulmonary medicine as an innovator, clinician, mentor and teacher. Through this program exceptional students will be encouraged to pursue a career in teaching, research and/or patient care modeled after the life and work of Dr. Mayock.
Operation of the Robert L. Mayock Student Research Fellowship
Eligibility Criteria
- Undergraduate students or medical students. Preference is given to more senior students and to those already working with PACCD faculty
- Interest in pulmonary research/lung biology
Application Instructions
- Contact a Penn PI and work with the PI to describe the research project that can be completed within an 8 – 10 week experience. The PI will submit a letter endorsing the research plan
- Personal statement describing interest in a pulmonary research experience, career goals, and detailing why the Mayock Fellowship best meets the candidate's goal (2 pages or less)
- Curriculum vitae
- Letter of support from the research PI; if the candidate is not personally known to the PI (e.g. the candidate is outside of Penn), an additional letter from a local faculty member who can speak to candidate's commitment to research and personal characteristics can supplement the application. The Penn PI statement is still required.
*Applications can be emailed to Nuala.Meyer@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with the Subject Line "Robert L. Mayock Student Research Fellowship Application" by 5 pm on March 1, 2025.
Selection of Candidates
The oversight committee will meet in March of each year to review and decide on the most qualified applicant(s).
Criteria to be used for the selection of the fellows include:
- Previous research experience
- Likelihood of accomplishing the proposed research plan
- The enthusiasm of the candidate for the fellowship as reflected in the application, the PI endorsement, and the strength of the letter of recommendation
- Previous academic success
Email notification of the decisions will be sent to the applicants by April 1st of each year and the selected fellow(s) will be presented annually to the Division Awards Committee.
Stipend
A stipend of $4,000 will be provided. This will come as payments throughout the summer, not as one lump sum.
Potentially Available Laboratory Experiences
Please use the faculty website to contact individual faculty and describe your research interest and prior skills. Most faculty emails are in the format firstname.lastname@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. Please note that faculty schedules and number of existing mentees vary, and thus not all faculty will have capacity each summer.
- Lung Epithelial Biology & Injury (Beers, Katzen)
- Laboratory of Rare Lung Diseases (Krymskaya, Lin)
- Acute Lung Injury and Pulmonary Vascular Biology (Mangalmurti, DeLisser, Vaughan)
- Thoracic Malignancies (Albelda, Vachani, Kim)
- Developmental Biology (Morrisey, Basil, Lin, Planer)
- Airway Biology and Regeneration (Basil)
- HIV Biology/Pulmonary Microbiome (Collman)
- Molecular Signals of Human Critical Illness (Christie, Meyer, Reilly, Shashaty, Jones)
- Sepsis (Meyer, Reilly, Mangalmurti)
- Lung Transplantation (Christie, M. Anderson, Shashaty)
- ARDS and Pneumonia (Reilly, Meyer)
If the research project changes meaningfully between the application and the start of the project, the candidate and PI are asked to send an updated research plan to Dr. Meyer
Fellowship Requirements