New Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Web Site Is Information Clearinghouse on Scholar, Fellow, Leadership Programs in Human Capital Portfolio

Web site provides wealth of information to those exploring scholar, fellow and leader opportunities at the Foundation.

Published: Mar 01, 2010 (link)

Michael Byun, M.P.A., executive director of Asian Services In Action, Inc. in Cleveland, has worked for more than 12 years on health disparities, social justice, and immigrant and refugee issues. He focuses on Asian-American, Pacific Islander and other underserved communities. Now, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Ladder to Leadership program is enhancing Byun’s expertise in collaboration, managing staff, team building, networking and innovation (full bio).

Diane Von Ah, Ph.D., R.N., an assistant professor at the School of Nursing at Indiana University, is conducting research into cancer symptom management. She received a first prize poster award at the 9th National Conference on Cancer Nursing Research and was named the 2008 Midwest Nursing Research Society Women’s Health Research Section New Investigator. Now, the RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar program is helping Von Ah take her research, leadership and teaching to a new level.

Byun and Von Ah are among the 2,200 scholars, fellows and leaders who have benefited from programs in the RWJF Human Capital Portfolio. Other RWJF programs provide postdoctoral research awards to physicians from historically underrepresented groups who are committed to developing careers in academic medicine, offer physicians two years of graduate-level study and research to foster their development as leaders, and give senior-level nurses the chance to apply for three-year fellowships that include leadership development.

These and other opportunities for academic and career development are available to current and aspiring health workers through RWJF—and now, for the first time, information about these opportunities is available under the same virtual roof: a new Web site that houses information about fellow and scholar programs in the Foundation’s Human Capital Portfolio.

Human Capital Portfolio scholar, fellow and leadership opportunities are designed to support the careers of current and aspiring health workers in medical research, nursing, health policy, non-profit leadership and other fields. The portfolio aims to invest today in the people who will shape health and health care research, policy and delivery for years to come, with the goal of improving health care for all Americans.

The Foundation launched the Scholars, Fellows & Leadership Programs site on March 1. It is located at www.RWJFLeaders.org.

“The new Web site brings together the essential facts about opportunities for individuals in the RWJF Human Capital Portfolio,” said Human Capital Portfolio Team Director David Krol, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P. “We’ve aimed to design a site that is enjoyable to visit and explore, as well as one that displays what the Human Capital Portfolio is all about: identifying people who have the potential to transform our health care system, and providing them with the support to realize their promise.”

The site is an information clearinghouse for the Human Capital Portfolio. It provides news about scholars, fellows and alumni such as Robert Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., an alumnus of the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development program who traveled to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in November.

It also includes profiles of and testimonials from scholars, fellows and leaders; application deadlines for Human Capital funding opportunities; alerts about upcoming events; and a link to the portfolio’s e-newsletter, Leaders’ Link. Visitors can search the site to identify programs of interest and also submit questions about individual programs.