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PODCAST

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01

For women faculty, transitioning from a Career Development (K) Award to your first NIH R01 is about more than just writing a fundable grant. Host and expert NIH grant consultant Sarah Dobson guides early career researchers through the roadmap for overcoming the hurdles of being a woman in academia and avoiding the K cliff. She’s ready to see passionate and tenacious women K Award recipients level up to R01 funding and build impactful, thriving, and fulfilling research careers. Visit

education careers

All Episodes

11:28

[Greatest Hits] Your Research Career Needs a Compass

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2026/02/19

Feeling pulled into every committee, side project, and “quick favor” while trying to make the K-to-R leap? In another of our greatest hits episodes, we explore one of the most powerful tools you can deploy in your research career. We start by naming the real friction: early career women are socialized to say yes and keep the peace, even when it derails the work that matters most. Then we get concrete. A well-defined North Star sets standards for what earns a yes, reframes no as integrity, an...

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16:39

[Greatest Hits] How Unconscious Decision-Making Can...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2026/02/05

Fear, pressure, and momentum can quietly shape a career you never meant to build. In another of our greatest hits episodes, we take a clear-eyed look at how unconscious choices creep into your career, leading to unintended consequences. We help you understand the difference between conscious vs unconscious decision making and why it matters for early-stage investigators chasing R01-level funding. From the dangers of track-thinking and the shame of “falling off the path,” to the pitfalls of a...

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6:31

[Greatest Hits] How to Free Yourself From the Mentee...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2026/01/22

You don’t become a PI after you get funded; you get funded after you start thinking and acting like a PI. In another one of our show's greatest hits, this episode unpacks the crucial mindset shift from mentee to independent leader: focusing on self-trust, clear decision-making, and protecting your research vision from well-intentioned but ultimately misguided advice. We dig into the hidden forces that keep talented women researchers second-guessing themselves: academic hierarchy that rewards...

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20:20

[Greatest Hits] 3 Things You Need to Know About The K...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2026/01/08

Ready for a candid look at the K‑to‑R leap no one warns you about? In a replay of our most popular episode of all time, we go straight at the hidden work behind a fundable R01: reshaping priorities, setting boundaries that stick, and building the focus required for mastery. Instead of treating the R01 as a one‑off writing sprint, we reframe it as the natural output of a well‑designed research life—one where your yeses and nos serve your science. We break down three core shifts. First, the mo...

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18:27

Finding Your Footing: Reflection Questions To Close A...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/12/18

In a moment when the funding landscape has been unstable, institutions have been unpredictable, and many of you have been carrying more emotional and intellectual weight than ever, it can feel self-indulgent to pause and look back. But this practice isn’t about creating a tidy narrative of the year. It’s about locating yourself again — your values, your choices, your direction — so you can step into the new year with clarity and intention. Below, you’ll find all of the questions from my long-...

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28:25

Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Sunny Lin, PhD

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/12/04

What do you do when a grant that anchors your research disappears overnight? We sit down with Sunny Lin, PhD to explore the real work of rebuilding after a canceled K Award. Our conversation moves through the full arc of the K-to-R journey. We talk candidly about the moment a career plan implodes, why grief is not a distraction but a tool for clarity, and how momentum returns when you name what you lost. Sunny shares the practical pivots that kept the research alive, while staying firml...

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7:26

Uncharted Academia Part 6: Sustainable Ambition

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

We wrap our Uncharted Academia series by making a clear case for sustainable ambition—ambition that draws strength from purpose, alignment, and hope, not from fear or constant approval-seeking. Across a turbulent funding climate and shifting institutional norms, Sarah explores how early career researchers can protect their energy, keep their work focused, and build labs that thrive for the long game. We explore how to protect the kind of ambition that expands your capacity instead of d...

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7:26

Uncharted Academia Part 5: Redefining Success

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

In Part 5 of this series, Sarah explores how external metrics create an illusion of certainty—and how to replace it with something sturdier: your own clear metrics, aligned with work that genuinely matters. In this episode, we talk about redefining success on your own terms. Because when the ground is shifting beneath academia, the only real security comes from what you carry with you: your skills, your clarity, your integrity. We’ll explore how to identify the markers that actu...

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11:01

Uncharted Academia Part 4: Building Research And...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

In Part 4 of this series Sarah explores an essential way to navigate uncertainty—one built on intentional collaborations, reciprocal networks, and leadership that starts with self-stewardship. We explore how to choose fruitful collaborations. And beyond the science itself, we dig into building a career network that protects your future. Reciprocity is the rule—give introductions, feedback, and amplification as readily as you ask for them—while staying discerning about trust and access. We co...

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17:40

Uncharted Academia Part 3: Protecting and Leveraging...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

In Part 3 of this series, Sarah maps a practical way through turbulence by protecting the two skills that matter most: resilience, rooted in purpose and self-belief, and communication, the ability to show the value of your research with precision. We start by redefining survival mode as mission critical work. Using a North Star to guide decisions, we sort real priorities from panic tasks and say yes only to the actions that move core research forward. That includes recognizing when instituti...

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13:50

Uncharted Academia Part 2: Finding Strategic Clarity

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

The ground is shifting under research funding, and we’re not waiting around for “normal” to return. In Part 2 of Uncharted Academia, Sarah lays out a practical path for early career investigators to stay steady and keep moving: cultivate resilience, communicate value with precision, and steer every decision using a clear North Star. If you’ve felt the pressure to diversify beyond NIH but weren’t sure how to adapt without losing focus, this conversation gives you a framework that actually hold...

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15:03

Uncharted Academia Part 1: The End of the Old Rulebook?

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/11/13

The ground under academic research careers is shifting fast—and waiting for a return to “normal” is costing time, energy, and momentum. In this first episode of Uncharted Academia, Sarah names what has changed: shrinking NIH budgets, political threats to universities, and rising burnout across the academy. She looks squarely at the panic spreading through the system and the unequal burdens placed on scholars whose work has long been undervalued. Drawing a line from the pandemic’s failures to ...

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1:01

Introducing a Special Series: Uncharted Academia

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/10/30

This is a quick preview of my new six-part series, Uncharted Academia — about navigating research careers in a time of transformation. Over six episodes, we’ll talk about clarity, boundaries, leadership, and redefining success in a system that’s changing for good. Interested in joining the next cohort of K to R Essentials? Join the waitlist at https://sarahdobson.co/k2r

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47:46

Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Kalisha Bonds...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/09/11

Navigating the leap from K Award to R01 funding demands more than scientific expertise—it requires discovering your authentic research voice and purpose. In this revealing conversation with Dr. Kalisha Bonds Johnson, we explore how finding your North Star can transform your research journey, especially during uncertain times. Dr. Johnson, who studies African-American adult daughters supporting parents with dementia, shares her powerful story of claiming her brilliance in spaces that often un...

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29:18

Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Haixia Zheng, PhD

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/08/07

Transitioning from K to R grant funding demands more than just technical knowledge—it requires a fundamental shift in scientific identity and leadership. K to R Essentials graduate Haixia Zheng, PhD shares her journey from K Award success to preparing for her R grant submission. In our conversation we discuss: • Comparing grant writing to "playing chess without knowing the rules" • Developing "inner mentorship" skills to evaluate advice critically • Learning to decline mentor suggestions tha...

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30:51

Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Caitlin Rancher PhD

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/07/24

K to R Essentials graduate Caitlin Rancher, PhD shares her journey navigating the K99-R00 transition while developing essential skills for independent faculty success. She discusses how applying a scientific mindset to career challenges transformed uncertainty into opportunity. In this conversation we discuss: • The challenge of "going off the written map" when transitioning from structured training to independent faculty • Creating and protecting boundaries around time commitments, especia...

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17:04

Reclaiming Control Over Your Academic Career

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/07/10

When your grant funding suddenly vanishes, panic isn't just common—it's expected. But how you respond to that panic could determine whether your research vision survives or gets sacrificed in the scramble. Drawing from recent conversations with early-career researchers facing grant terminations, this episode delves into a crucial dilemma: the instinct to immediately "fix" your funding situation by attaching yourself to others' grants may eliminate space for your own research. When we b...

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26:26

Tempted to Use AI to Write Your Grant? Here's What To...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/06/26

The ever-expanding presence of artificial intelligence in our professional lives has reached the sacred territory of research grant writing, raising profound questions about scientific integrity and the nature of academic work. As someone who's spent a fair amount of time exploring these tools firsthand, I'm sharing my perspective on how researchers can navigate the use of these tools without compromising what makes their work valuable. Grant writing isn't just an administrative task standing...

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12:26

Introspection as a Career Strategy: Wayfinding...

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/06/12

This episode gets a bit personal! Rediscovering a 12-year-old journal unexpectedly transformed my understanding of the work I do now. For weeks, I found myself immersed in the pages of my younger self's thoughts, witnessing my struggles to define personal and professional goals while questioning if I even deserved to have them. What struck me most was seeing the ongoing dialogue I maintained with myself—a practice of brutal honesty and introspection that ultimately helped me bridge the gap be...

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40:48

Featured K to R Essentials Graduate: Amy LeClair, PhD

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 ·

2025/05/29

In this episode, I sit down with Amy LeClair, PhD — a medical sociologist and recent K to R Essentials graduate — for a powerful conversation about moving from being a perpetual collaborator to pursuing independent research, describing how she found support through structured mentorship and community during a pivotal career phase. She discusses the challenges of balancing her research on healthcare equity with personal life changes, including welcoming twins while pursuing her professional go...

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108 results

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