Development Core

The Development Core (DC) aims to engage and support early-career population scientists and launch innovative research projects that engage PDHP affiliates at all levels and address NICHD-PDB research priorities. The DC prioritizes junior scientists with an intensive mentoring program solely for them and by giving them premier access to all other Core services and resources.

The DC funds pilot project small grants. We offer a competitive program – open to all PDHP affiliates – of internally peer-reviewed small grants to conduct high-priority pilot or demonstration projects designed to increase the success of proposals to NIH for full-scale projects.

The DC provides periods of intensive research mentoring for junior scientists. This competitive program for those classified as “new investigators” by NIH offers four weeks of intensive research proposal writing support for junior scientists, with structured feedback from senior scientists and experienced professional research staff.

The DC offers ongoing proposal support and peer review of proposals. We offer and will expand an integrated set of services to improve the quality of grant proposals, including consulting on proposal preparation, administrative shell preparation services, and peer review modeled on NIH study section review processes.

Erin B. Ware (Director, PDHP Development Core) is an assistant research professor at the Institute for Social Research and a faculty affiliate at the Population Studies Center and Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She is a genetic epidemiologist whose research interests include using a lifecourse approach to study health disparities in mental health and cognition. She is also very involved in helping bridge social science and biomarker research to help elucidate biosocial processes at the population-level.