We have spoken with several professors who are interested in having students do international research with them this summer. Get working on this soon and ask for help when you need it. It is in everybody's best interest to have as many students going abroad to do good research this summer, so let's make it happen.

There are basically two funding sources for students: The Harold Williams, M.D. Medical Student Research Fellowship (30 positions) and General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) Stipends. The GCRC has both summer and year long stipends. Historically, these funding sources have favored on campus work. However, last year, with the Williams in particular, many students were approved for international projects.

To have the best chance of getting this funding, it is important to present your research well and to have a clearly focused research question.

- Vaani Garg(vaani.garg@tufts.edu)

Checklist

1. Determine if you can go abroad. (Do you have commitments here that you have to take care of?)
   
   
2. Determine if you want to do (or are okay with doing) research, or if you want to travel or do more humanitarian work. Funding and projects through mentors favors summer research - may be basic research or public health work.
   
   
3. Determine if you have the personal funds to supplement whatever grant money you receive.
   
   
4. Look at the information on GCRC, the Harold Williams Program, and the other research grants. Last year this information was incredibly vague, and there is apparently interest in improving this info. Either way, it's a good place to start. http://www.tufts.edu/med/research/
   
   
5. Talk with one of the people on the Global Health Club board to get an idea about what professors are doing and look at the Global Health Website list of mentors.
   
   
6. Contact chosen professors. Many of these people work incredibly hard and travel a lot, so if they don't get back to you, try, try again (but don't hound them too much). They are doing us a favor so please be extremely professional.
   
   
7. Consider doing a research selective with the professor to get familiar with research techniques etc... Some of the profs thought that this would be a good idea, other's didn't seem to interested in it. You would need to do the selective for the 2nd block this spring.
   
   
8. Talk with them about research ideas. Basically if you choose to piggyback onto an established project you will have a better chance at getting funding. Most of the mentors that we have spoken with are interested in helping with writing grants. This is crucial to getting funding.
   
   
9. Get the grant application in for the first round of funding. The date has not been set yet, but aim for the beginning of March.

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