Categories: Mentoring


Successfully Navigating Your PhD:

A Mentoring Workshop for 3rd & 4th Year Women & Non-Binary PhD Students in Health Economics & Health Policy

Friday, September 17, 2021
(On Zoom)

Organizers: Marika Cabral and Maya Rossin-Slater
With Support from AEA-CSWEP and ASHEcon

APPLICATIONS DUE MAY 15, 2021

Purpose

In most economics and economics-adjacent PhD programs, students will have completed their coursework and chosen their fields by the completion of their second year. Then, students face the daunting and exciting task of conducting their own independent research, sometimes for the first time in their lives. Students can feel overwhelmed and lost at this juncture in their studies, and may not always have access to support and resources that can help them navigate graduate school successfully and make the most out of their PhD experience.

Women and non-binary students, who are substantially under-represented in the profession and face a variety of systemic barriers (Goldin, 2013; Bayer & Rouse, 2016; Hengel, 2017; Mengel et al., 2017; Sarsons, 2017; Wu, 2017; Bayer & Wilcox, 2019; Lundberg & Stearns, 2019; Lundberg, 2020; Doleac, Hengel & Pancotti, 2021; Dupas et al., 2021), may be at a particular disadvantage, and may lack women/non-binary peers, role models, or mentors in their own departments and networks. They may therefore miss out on valuable “hidden curriculum” information and feel unsupported.

In health economics and health policy fields, a successful research career is often dependent on access to restricted administrative data sets (e.g., insurance claims data), ability to raise grant funding, interdisciplinary collaborations, and ability to publish in interdisciplinary outlets. Thus, the challenges faced by under-represented groups in the profession are compounded because these benefits and skills tend to be disseminated through networks and the “hidden curriculum”. The goal of this workshop is to begin to lower these barriers.

Details

The workshop will be modeled after earlier workshops of this kind, which targeted women and non-binary PhD students in economics. It is also inspired by the successful CeMENT workshop for female assistant professors in economics, which is hosted by the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) and the American Economic Association (AEA).

Third- and fourth-year women/non-binary Ph.D. students in health economics or health policy are eligible to participate (no restrictions on geographic location). Students from under-represented minority (URM) backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.

Student participants will be organized into small groups based on shared research interests, and each group will be matched with 1-2 mentors. Mentors will be women/non-binary health economists in early stages of their careers – assistant professors in economics and health policy departments, as well as those employed outside academia (e.g., research think tanks, government positions, industry). The workshop will focus on a variety of issues, including generating research ideas, finding advisors, accessing data, collaboration and co-authorship, finding opportunities to present research and get feedback, grant writing, networking, mental health, and work-life balance. The workshop, which will be held virtually on Friday, September 17, 2021, will include panels, small group sessions, informal discussions, and other activities.

To Apply

Please use this form to apply AND please send your CV and 1-page research proposal to info@cswep.org**Please write, “Health Mentoring Workshop Application” in subject line**

The research proposal should outline at least one research idea that you are planning to pursue, and include details about the research question, setting, data, and empirical design.

Applications are due May 15, 2021.

Admission to Workshop

We hope to be able to accommodate as many students as we can with this workshop. Our slots are limited by the number of mentor volunteers that we have. If demand for the workshop exceeds supply of slots, then slots will be randomly allocated among all applicants who meet the workshop eligibility criteria.

Applicants will be notified about their admission status in early summer 2021.