Mentor Award Program | Global Health Program

Supporting faculty in advancing mentorship

The David Geffen School of Medicine’s Global Health Program (GHP) is excited to offer funding for faculty who mentor medical students on global health projects throughout the Global Health Equity Pathway. We recognize that in order to create opportunities for students, mentors often use their own resources to support student projects (e.g., hiring local research assistants or translators, paying for in-country transportation, supplies, etc.). The goal of the mentor award is to offset some of these costs and assist mentors in providing students with high-quality global health experiences.

Brief Description

The current iteration of the Mentor Award is only available to mentors of students from the Classes of 2025, 2026, and 2027. Mentors of Class of 2028 students should look out for a new application, which will be released in Fall 2025.

Mentors of Pathway students may apply for funding ranging from $500 to $2,000 per mentor per year, subject to available funding, to support their mentorship efforts. Mentors of Concentration students are also eligible to apply; however, funding for this group is more limited and awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. These awards are intended to help offset costs associated with mentoring DGSOM students as part of their involvement in the Global Health Program.

Mentorship Compact

The Mentorship Compact, developed by the UC Global Health Institute (UCGHI), provides a strong guide for both mentors and students on how to engage with each other throughout the longitudinal Global Equity Health Pathway. Additional support is provided by GHP to encourage effective partnerships between mentors and mentees, including the opportunity to share resources/best practices on mentoring global health trainees with colleagues across the globe and build personal networks with other mentors through annual virtual meetings and a mentor listserv (participation optional).

Eligibility

To qualify for this award, a mentor must be a full-time UCLA faculty member and be the mentor of a DGSOM student (the UCLA mentor may send award funds to the partner site, if appropriate).

For costs related to research and active data collection, both UCLA and global site IRB approvals must be obtained and provided to GHP before funds will be released to the mentor. If IRB is not required for data collection, the mentor must provide an explanation for this in the application.

Timeline

Awards are granted on a rolling basis.

Submit your application to request funding.

Funding Application Form

For questions about your application, please contact Dr. Traci Wells, GHP Director of Education, at TWells@mednet.ucla.edu. Once you have submitted your application, please notify Vijeta Vaswani, GHP Program Coordinator, at vvaswani@mednet.ucla.edu.