Thank you for your interest in postdoctoral positions through the PROMISE AGEP, schools within the University System of Maryland, other AGEPS, and partners.

2017-2017 Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity

https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/call-for-applications-for-the-4th-cohort-of-postdoctoral-fellows-for-faculty-diversity/

Tips for applying for the NSF PROMISE Postdoctoral Fellowship

Determine eligibility. For the PROMISE AGEP Fellowship, you must meet the following requirements:
1. Be a U.S. citizen (or national) or a U.S. permanent resident, i.e., have a “green card,” when applying.
2. Be a member of an underrepresented group per the National Science Foundation’s guidelines. NSF notes that ” AGEP is committed to the national goal of increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities (URMs), including those with disabilities, entering and completing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate education and postdoctoral training to levels representative of the available pool. URMs include African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.”
3. Have a research plan that falls within the purview of the National Science Foundation (see the list of NSF-supported fields: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/about/list-of-nsf-supported-fields/
4. Earn the doctoral degree in an appropriate field prior to beginning the fellowship
5. Be within 3 years of doctoral degree conferral.
Look closely at the department of interest. Make sure that your research area and potential publishing contribution aligns very closely with the research in the department, and that your work connects in a collaborative way with a primary mentor AND at least two other tenure-track members of the faculty.
1. These three faculty members must be core, full-time, tenure-track members of the faculty.
2. Do not choose faculty who have designations such as emeritus, on sabbatical, adjunct, part-time, affiliate, research faculty, associate faculty (different from tenured Associate Professor), etc.
Identify faculty with funding. Identity faculty for your application who have active funding streams that will be in place throughout the time of your proposed appointment, at agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, etc.
1. Be sure that the faculty have active, full-time, established research programs in order to appropriately mentor postdocs and plug them into research that has established publication and funding streams.
2. The faculty have opportunities to write grants for a postdoctoral research supplement to support their work. They can utilize this funding mechanism for you and use the PROMISE postdoctoral fellowship as a springboard for the first year.
Have a plan. Develop an action plan and timeline that demonstrate a plan for a tenure-track faculty position, keeping in mind that the PROMISE postdoctoral program is being funded to provide training for future faculty. This is not a program for future higher education program administrators.
Make contact with faculty of interest in advance. In many NSF postdoctoral programs, “The applicant is responsible for making prior arrangements with the host institution and sponsoring scientist(s).” The PROMISE program adopts this premise by encouraging that applicant contact potential mentors in advance to assess:
1. Research fit
2. Readiness on the part of the mentor to have a postdoc
3. Willingness of the mentor to assist the postdoc with additional funding mechanisms that will fund a second year of postdoctoral training
4. Willingness of the mentor to provide training that will prepare the postdoc for a faculty career (including opportunities to publish.)