The New Harvest - Culley Carlson Award

Basic Information

Eligibility

• Current PhD student or postdoc (or other similar level professional degrees (e.g. J.D.) ) with ~1 year remaining in training and/or planned postdoc time
• Deep expertise in an area relevant to cellular agriculture (no limitations on topic areas)
• University affiliation and the support of an academic advisor (Preferred, but flexible depending on discipline. Please reach out if you are unsure.)
• We welcome applications from around the world as the experience is online

Award

$5,000 USD which can be used for research materials, stipend, professional development, or career-related expenses.

Awardees will continue in their current position. This award is intended to supplement their existing stipend and research support, providing an opportunity for additional experience in cellular agirculture.

Term

The award runs for one year. The start date is flexible but should begin between October and December 2024.

Expectations

This is not an award for those who want to spend a year head-down on an independent project. Rather, this is a program for people who are looking to expand their work through discourse and collaboration with other researchers and practitioners.  Awardees are expected to be active members of the New Harvest community – participating in knowledge exchange and events; supporting and mentoring peers; and working on collaborative projects with each other and alongside New Harvest staff. This includes, at minimum, one 60-minute virtual meeting per month.

Each awardee, over the course of their award, will pursue a project or set of activities of their own design to apply their expertise to cellular agriculture. Awardees are expected to devote a significant portion of their time to this work. However, continuation of doctoral work in another field is expected for students still completing their degree. Applicants should think carefully to ensure they have the time and advisor support to devote to additional work.

Programming and Support

In addition to the financial support, awardees will receive mentorship and support from the New Harvest team, research community, and affiliates.

While New Harvest’s programming is set up to put you in contact with many different people from across the cellular agriculture field, it will be up to you to turn those interactions into meaningful collaborations. We are happy to support those collaborations as much as we can from an organizational perspective.

Awardees who are so inclined will be supported in advancing their thought leadership through op-eds, speaking opportunities, and other public-facing fora, especially within the cellular agriculture community.

Application Process

Application Materials

1) Statement of interest: 1-2 page

• describe your expertise and how it applies to cellular agriculture
• propose a project or set of activities applying your expertise to cellular agriculture (this is not a formal project proposal, but the value of these activities for cellular agriculture and your career development should be clear)
• describe your career goals and how this award will help you achieve them (note: the award can be used for expenses other than the research project, including professional and career development activities)

2) Letter of support from the candidate’s advisor: 1 page

3) Curriculum vitae (CV)

Application materials should be sent to breanna@new-harvest.org.

Timeline

Applications are due August 22, 2024. Selected applicants may be contacted for an interview and asked for additional information as they move through the review process.

Successful applicants will be notified in October, with a public announcement to follow. Awards are expected to be disbursed between October and December and run for 1 year.

Decision Criteria

New Harvest has a “People First, Projects Second” philosophy when it comes to our work. We believe people, rather than ideas or intellectual property, are at the heart of creating change. Naturally, a solid scientific foundation is important for this award. However, more than anything, we are looking to fund and partner with individuals who show promise to be leaders in the field.

We evaluate each candidate according to the following criteria:

• Research Vision: Ability to effectively articulate how the academic study a candidate has conducted thus far will be applied to cellular agriculture.
• Community Commitment: Demonstrated enthusiasm for being an active member of the New Harvest research community and leadership in the field.
• Academic Output: Record of productive academic work (e.g. publications, conference presentations, or other scholarly output).

If you have any questions, please contact Bre Duffy at breanna@new-harvest.org.

About the Culley Carlson Foundation

The Culley Carlson Foundation (CCF) is committed to empowering pioneers in innovation aimed at protecting our planet and its flora, fauna and fungi. Recognizing the substantial environmental impact of animal agriculture, CCF places great emphasis on supporting the emerging bioeconomy. We believe this sector holds the key to revolutionizing and enhancing food and agricultural systems, driving us toward a sustainable future.

This program was inspired, in part, by the Data & Society Fellows Call, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.