Submit a Proposal to APA 2025 *Calling all early career investigators in alcohol research*

For Division 50 Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Early Career Researchers:

Division 50 and 28 have co-hosted a special poster session for early career investigators.

What? Travel awards include $750 to help cover costs for early career investigators to present at the annual APA convention

Why? To share your alcohol and addiction related research at APA and network with leading experts in the field, including colleagues within Divisions 50, 28, 25, 5, and 38. If accepted for a travel award, you present your work twice at APA: during your regularly scheduled time, and additionally at the early career investigator poster session.

When? Submit your proposal to APA by January 8th – if you’re proposal is accepted to APA, you can apply for a travel award in the Spring

Where? Submit your proposal for APA 2025 in Denver here: Call for Proposals - APA Convention 2025

Who? Early career investigators who are first author on a paper or symposium on alcohol-related research. This includes current graduate students, postdocs or early stage faculty members (within 10 years of receiving your degree). Division 50 is also sponsoring 10 poster awards for other substance use and addiction research proposals, which includes the presentation of your poster at this special session.

We encourage early career investigators to submit your proposal via APA’s online submission portal as you normally would (https://convention.apa.org/proposals).  You can submit directly to Division 50 (Addiction Psychology) or your home division.  APA’s deadline for submission is January 8th, 2025.  No need to worry about applying for the travel awards just yet – but keep an eye out for the announcement for travel awards submissions, after the decisions for APA conference speakers are shared.

Presentations will be showcased at an Early Career Investigators Poster Session and Social Hour sponsored by the Division 50 (Society of Addiction Psychology), Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse), and NIAAA.  We’ve also partnered with Divisions 5, 25, and 38 to share this opportunity widely and network with divisions that intersect with alcohol and substance use work. We will have 20 alcohol related travel awards of $750, and Division 50 is graciously sponsoring another 10 awards for substance use research outside of alcohol to cover the costs of poster presentations.  The Early Career Investigators Poster Session and Social Hour is a superb opportunity to connect with your peers and leading scientists in the field of addiction. 

We especially encourage persons from backgrounds that have been minoritized and excluded from research to apply. Specifically:

• Persons from racial and ethnic groups that have been shown by the National Science Foundation to be underrepresented in health-related sciences on a national basis and the report Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering). The following racial and ethnic groups have been shown to be underrepresented in biomedical research: Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.  For more information on racial and ethnic categories and definitions, see NOT-OD-15-089.
• Persons with disabilities, who are defined as those with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, as described in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended.
• Persons from socio-economic disadvantaged backgrounds as defined by 2 or more of these criteria: 

1. Were or currently are homeless, as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (Definition: https://nche.ed.gov/mckinney-vento/);

2. Were or currently are in the foster care system, as defined by the Administration for Children and Families (Definition: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/focus-areas/foster-care);

3. Were eligible for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program for two or more years (Definition: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/income-eligibility-guidelines);

4. Have/had no parents or legal guardians who completed a bachelor’s degree (see https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018009.pdf);

5. Were or currently are eligible for Federal Pell grants (Definition: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/fpg/eligibility.html);

6. Received support from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a parent or child (Definition: https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/wic-eligibility-requirements).

7. Grew up in one of the following areas: a) a U.S. rural area, as designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer (https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/rural-health), or b) a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-designated Low-Income and Health Professional Shortage Areas (qualifying zip codes are included in the file). Only one of the two possibilities in #7 can be used as a criterion for the disadvantaged background definition.

We would love to have you be part at our 2025 Early Career Investigators Poster Session in Denver! If you have any questions at all about the process, or need help finding symposium co-presenters – please email Lourah Kelly at Lourah.Kelly@umassmed.edu or Nancy Hu at Nancy.hu@umassmed.edu. We look forward to celebrating our early career investigators and continuing this exciting event!