CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture
2019-2020 Graduate Fellowship
Columbia University’s working group on Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture (PMEPC) is seeking graduate fellows for the 2019-2020 academic year. Graduate students from any of Columbia’s schools whose work is related to any aspect of precision medicine are invited and encouraged to apply.
Project Description:
Precision Medicine—an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person—raises a myriad of cultural, political, and historical questions that the humanities are uniquely positioned to address. As part of its overall Precision Medicine Initiative, and specifically, it’s Precision Medicine & Society arm, Columbia has initiated a broad based exploration of questions that precision medicine raises in law, ethics, the social sciences, and the humanities, which establishes the University as the center for scholarship relating to precision medicine and society. The Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture Project is the first of its kind to bring Columbia faculty from the humanities, social sciences, law, and medicine into dialogue with leading scholars from the United States and abroad to discuss how social scientific and humanistic questions might enhance our understanding of the ethical, social, legal, and political implications of precision medicine research, and to inform social scientists and humanists about evidence, evaluation, and research outcomes from serious interdisciplinary engagement with this emerging medical field.
The working group provides an excellent opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary discussion, networking, and other work related to recent developments and the future of precision medicine and society. The project is co-directed by Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD (Columbia University Irving Medical Center) and Gil Eyal, PhD (Columbia’s Department of Sociology).
Fellowship Requirements:
Graduate fellows will be expected to attend all meetings (4 public events followed by 4 working group meetings led by visiting scholars during the academic year); read circulated materials prior to the meetings and take part in conversation; provide an oral response to one of the scheduled speakers; write a short blog about that event; assist with promotion and publicity for meetings on Columbia’s campuses; and otherwise support and facilitate the work of the group. In addition, graduate fellows will work with the PMEPC’s directors to develop a manuscript on a topic related to precision medicine and society and present on it to the working group and the Precision Medicine & Society Steering Committee.
The schedule for the public events is enclosed. The working group meetings will take place in the morning following the public event.
Fellows will receive a $2,500 stipend for the year. Only Columbia graduate students are eligible. Applicants with disabilities and applicants belonging to minority groups are encouraged to apply.
To apply, please submit your CV and a one-page letter describing your research interests, skills and how the PMEPC’s Graduate Fellowship will advance your professional trajectory to Daniel Wojtkiewicz (dnw2116@columbia.edu) by Sep. 23, 2019. Questions about this fellowship and the project more generally can be sent to the directors’, Maya and Gil as well. Successful applicants will be notified by Oct. 7, 2019.
