Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01
For women faculty, transitioning from a Career Development (K) Award to your first NIH R01 is about more than just writing a fundable grant. Host and expert NIH grant consultant Sarah Dobson guides early career researchers through the roadmap for overcoming the hurdles of being a woman in academia and avoiding the K cliff. She’s ready to see passionate and tenacious women K Award recipients level up to R01 funding and build impactful, thriving, and fulfilling research careers. Visit https://sarahdobson.co to learn more.
Episodes
101 episodes
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Sunny Lin, PhD
What do you do when a grant that anchors your research disappears overnight? We sit down with Sunny Lin, PhD to explore the real work of rebuilding after a canceled K Award. Our conversation moves through the full arc of the K-to-R journey. We ...
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28:25
Uncharted Academia Part 6: Sustainable Ambition
We wrap our Uncharted Academia series by making a clear case for sustainable ambition—ambition that draws strength from purpose, alignment, and hope, not from fear or constant approval-seeking. Across a turbulent funding climate and shifting in...
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Episode 96
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7:26
Uncharted Academia Part 5: Redefining Success
In Part 5 of this series, Sarah explores how external metrics create an illusion of certainty—and how to replace it with something sturdier: your own clear metrics, aligned with work that genuinely matters. In this episode, we talk...
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Episode 95
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7:26
Uncharted Academia Part 4: Building Research And Career Networks That Last
In Part 4 of this series Sarah explores an essential way to navigate uncertainty—one built on intentional collaborations, reciprocal networks, and leadership that starts with self-stewardship.We explore how to choose fruitful collaborat...
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Episode 94
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11:01
Uncharted Academia Part 3: Protecting and Leveraging Excellence
In Part 3 of this series, Sarah maps a practical way through turbulence by protecting the two skills that matter most: resilience, rooted in purpose and self-belief, and communication, the ability to show the value of your research with precisi...
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Episode 93
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17:40
Uncharted Academia Part 2: Finding Strategic Clarity
The ground is shifting under research funding, and we’re not waiting around for “normal” to return. In Part 2 of Uncharted Academia, Sarah lays out a practical path for early career investigators to stay steady and keep moving: cultivate resili...
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Episode 92
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13:50
Uncharted Academia Part 1: The End of the Old Rulebook?
The ground under academic research careers is shifting fast—and waiting for a return to “normal” is costing time, energy, and momentum.In this first episode of Uncharted Academia, Sarah names what has changed: shrinking NIH budg...
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Episode 91
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15:03
Introducing a Special Series: Uncharted Academia
This is a quick preview of my new six-part series, Uncharted Academia — about navigating research careers in a time of transformation. Over six episodes, we’ll talk about clarity, boundaries, leadership, and redefining success in a sys...
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1:01
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Kalisha Bonds Johnson PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC
Navigating the leap from K Award to R01 funding demands more than scientific expertise—it requires discovering your authentic research voice and purpose. In this revealing conversation with Dr. Kalisha Bonds Johnson, we explore how finding your...
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Episode 90
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47:46
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Haixia Zheng, PhD
Transitioning from K to R grant funding demands more than just technical knowledge—it requires a fundamental shift in scientific identity and leadership. K to R Essentials graduate Haixia Zheng, PhD shares her journey from K Award success to pr...
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Episode 89
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29:18
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Caitlin Rancher PhD
K to R Essentials graduate Caitlin Rancher, PhD shares her journey navigating the K99-R00 transition while developing essential skills for independent faculty success. She discusses how applying a scientific mindset to career challenges transfo...
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Episode 88
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30:51
Reclaiming Control Over Your Academic Career
When your grant funding suddenly vanishes, panic isn't just common—it's expected. But how you respond to that panic could determine whether your research vision survives or gets sacrificed in the scramble.Drawing from recent conversatio...
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Episode 87
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17:04
Tempted to Use AI to Write Your Grant? Here's What To Consider
The ever-expanding presence of artificial intelligence in our professional lives has reached the sacred territory of research grant writing, raising profound questions about scientific integrity and the nature of academic work. As someone who's...
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Episode 86
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26:26
Introspection as a Career Strategy: Wayfinding Without a Map
This episode gets a bit personal! Rediscovering a 12-year-old journal unexpectedly transformed my understanding of the work I do now. For weeks, I found myself immersed in the pages of my younger self's thoughts, witnessing my struggles to defi...
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Episode 85
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12:26
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Amy LeClair, PhD
In this episode, I sit down with Amy LeClair, PhD — a medical sociologist and recent K to R Essentials graduate — for a powerful conversation about moving from being a perpetual collaborator to pursuing independent research, describing how she ...
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Episode 84
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40:48
You Can't Do It Alone: Finding Your People During the K to R Transition
Have you ever tried to navigate a major life change completely on your own? As someone who once proudly wore the "I'll figure it out myself" badge, I've learned through experience that community isn't just helpful during transitions—it's absolu...
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Episode 83
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12:26
When It Feels Like You Can't Catch A Break
If you’ve been feeling like you just can’t catch a break, this episode is for you.In the last five years, early-career researchers have had to navigate two major crises—first the pandemic, and now a new wave of funding instability and in...
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Episode 82
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14:25
Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Brienne Miner, MD MHS
In this episode, I sit down with Brienne Miner, MD MHS—a physician, researcher, and recent K to R Essentials graduate—for a powerful conversation about what it really looks like to step into your role as a PI with clarity and purpose.Bri...
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Episode 81
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32:13
A Strategic Reset When You’re Feeling Powerless
When the funding landscape feels chaotic, it’s easy to spiral into overwhelm or freeze in place. But one of the most powerful things you can do right now is come back to the work that grounds you.In this episode, I’m sharing a moment fro...
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Episode 80
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14:52
Short-Term Panic vs. Long-Term Strategy: How to Make Better Career Decisions
When the decisions you make are often short-term, reactionary, and misaligned with where you actually want to go.In this episode, we’re talking about the difference between making decisions from a place of fear versus a place of clarity—...
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Episode 79
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14:45
Overcommitted and Off-Track? How to Reclaim Your Time for the Work That Matters
Defining your North Star—the long-term vision for your research—is one thing. Actually aligning your daily work with it? That’s where things get tricky.Most researchers don’t realize just how misaligned their time and commitments are unt...
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Episode 78
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15:40
Navigating Institutional Chaos Without Losing Sight of Your Career Goals
With so much uncertainty in higher education, research funding, and institutional policies, it’s easy to feel like the ground is constantly shifting beneath you. But instead of reacting to institutional panic or the latest funding changes, you ...
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Episode 77
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17:09
K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes: The Proposal Development Plan That Saves You Time & Stress
This episode wraps up our K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes mini-series with a look inside the final month of the program—Planning. If you’ve been following along, you know that we start with the big-picture vision for your career, then build...
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Episode 76
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17:16
K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes: How to Strategically Map Your Next Steps
In this episode of K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes, we’re diving into strategy—the third month of the program and where we shift from big-picture vision work into pragmatic, strategic decision-making.One of the most important exercis...
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Episode 75
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12:25
K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes: Cultivating Leadership from Within
This episode continues our special miniseries, K to R Essentials Behind the Scenes, offering an inside look at our coaching calls. K to R Essentials is structured around four key themes—Vision, Leadership, Strategy, and Planning—and this series...
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Episode 74
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11:13