Did you know that NIH’s Office of Extramural Research (OER) has a dedicated portal of resources to help you understand the ins and outs of NIH funding opportunity announcements (FOAs)?

Career transitions are bound to happen as your professional and personal needs and interests evolve. Personally, I’ve made four moves, switching cities and states, titles, and responsibilities each time.

Despite our best intentions, we all perceive and treat people differently based on race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and other factors.

Learning to solve a new problem involves identifying the operating rules, which can be accelerated if known rules generalize in the new context. We ask how prior experience affects learning a new rule that is distinct from known rules. We examined how rats learned a new spatial navigation task after having previously learned tasks with different navigation rules. The new task differed from the previous tasks in spatial layout and navigation rule. We found that experience history did not impact overall performance. However, by examining navigation choice sequences in the new task, we found experience-dependent differences in exploration patterns during early stages of learning, as well as differences in the types of errors made during stable performance. The differences were consistent with the animals adopting experience-dependent memory strategies to discover and implement the new rule. Our results indicate prior experience shapes the strategies for solving novel problems, and the impact of prior experien...

Considering a career in academia? Small liberal arts institutions are just one of many options. See if they’re the right fit for you by learning about the opportunities and challenges in this type of environment.

At large research universities, it is your responsibility as a student to seek out and engage faculty members. It is unrealistic to expect a professor will come along, recognize your need for a mentor, and generously provide that personal and professional relationship.

Female neuroscientists may face many unique hurdles during the course of their careers including implicit gender bias, recruitment in academia, climate, and promotion and tenure impact. Join Susan Amara, PhD, and Sheena Josselyn, PhD, for the Women in Neuroscience subcommittee webinar and hear about the challenges they have faced and the advice they have for others who are in similar situations. At the end of the webinar, you will have new perspective to help you overcome similar challenges.

Are you just starting your career? Set yourself up for success in NIH’s grant application process by understanding NIH’s mission, nature, structure, and key personnel.

Studying internationally is one thing, and navigating the complex process from when you accept to when you arrive is another.

Students may decide to leave the bench for different reasons, including tight funding in academia and interest in opportunities in industry and other related careers.