The Texas Center for Health Disparities is proud to announce the creation of a new program that might be of interest to you. Called the STAR (Steps Toward Academic Research) Fellowship Program, it offers emerging faculty a full year of collaborative training and interaction with faculty from the HSC and other institutions, directed toward fostering Health Disparities Research Initiatives.

Ten faculty members will be selected to join our all-expense-paid STAR Fellowship Program each year, while maintaining their regular faculty positions. The first meeting of the program will be in June, 2006. The STAR Fellowship Program will provide a unique approach that will combine on-site faculty development and education with distant learning techniques that include video conferencing, on-line digital meetings, and "store and forward" technology in order to provide the skills necessary to STARS Fellows to enter into new health disparities research initiatives.

Successful completion of the STAR Fellows Program will offer each Fellow the opportunity to apply for pilot community-based health disparities research project grants each year ($25,000).

We invite you to submit the application or the name of a faculty member from your department who you feel would be an appropriate candidate for the STAR Fellowship Program. Criteria for your nomination would include a junior or newly appointed faculty member, interested and engaged in scholarly research activities, and interested in developing a research program in health disparities.