New Opportunity: Apply for the Whitaker International Summer Grants Program

Application Deadline: February 6, 2012

The Whitaker International Program, administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE), is launching the Whitaker International Summer Grants Program for young U.S. citizen or permanent resident biomedical engineers. Applications are now available online for the first round of grants, which will be for July 1 to August 30, 2012.

With support from the former Whitaker Foundation, IIE will provide bioengineers and biomedical engineers funding for eight (8) weeks to pursue, in an international setting, a high-quality activity relevant to their field of focus in biomedical engineering (BME). Grants can support research, or course work in BME, or an internship in industry. By providing young bioengineers and biomedical engineers the opportunity to go abroad, the Whitaker Summer Grants Program will achieve the following objectives:

Improve the expertise of the participants as scientists;
Build individual and institutional partnerships; and
Establish dialogues between the scientific community in the U.S. and rest of the world.

There will be one competition each year for the summer program. The awards will include a fellowship award, living costs, round-trip international airfare, and health insurance.

To be eligible for the award an applicant must:

have U.S. citizenship or permanent residence in the U.S.;
be a current master's or Ph.D. student at a U.S. university in bioengineering or biomedical engineering.

Any overseas academic institution, research lab, or corporation may host a grantee if it can offer an outstanding professional experience in biomedical engineering. Grant applicants must obtain their own placements, but the suitability of these placements will be reviewed as part of the application.

The competition is now open, with an application deadline of February 6, 2012. Award winners will be selected by a review committee, which will evaluate applications in spring of 2012 for awards to run from July 1, 2012, and end with a final program debriefing at the end of August, 2012. For more details and application guidelines, please visit www.whitaker.org.