Smith Family Foundation Odyssey Award
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: December 14, 2021
Sponsor Initial Proposal Deadline: January 4, 2022 by 12 PM
Award Amount: $300,000 over two years

The Smith Odyssey Award supports promising junior faculty who conduct basic biomedical research with the potential to transform their fields. The Odyssey Award supports the pursuit of high impact ideas to generate breakthroughs and drive new directions in biomedical research. Investigators in the physical sciences (physics, chemistry and engineering) whose projects focus on biomedical science are also encouraged to apply. The awards will fund high-risk, high-reward pilot projects solicited from the brightest junior faculty in the region. Projects should be conceptualized as a novel research line and a distinct and novel off-shoot from the applicant’s current research.

Applications will be accepted from full-time, independent faculty at academic research institutions who have not yet achieved tenure or its equivalent by the funding start date of November 1, 2022. Applicants must have received their first independent faculty appointment on or between November 1, 2013 and November 1, 2018. Applicants are ineligible if, at the time of application, they have combined federal and non-federal funding totaling $750,000 or more in direct costs in either of the first two years (11/1/22 - 10/31/23 or 11/1/23 - 10/31/24) of the two-year Smith Odyssey Award. This figure refers to external funding only and not an applicant’s start-up package, other intramural support, or the Smith Family Awards Program for Excellence in Biomedical Research. Women and people of color are encouraged to apply.

Recent Recipients include Mansi Srivastava (OEB, 2020), Benjamin de Bivort (OEB, 2018), and Ya-Chieh Hsu (SCRB, 2018).