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School of Public Health Pilot Awards: Ride Share Award
Program Overview
The School of Public Health (SOPH) Office of Research (OOR) invites faculty to submit applications for the 2026 Ride Share Pilot Award. The Ride Share Award is a $50,000 SOPH pilot award designed to align with the SOPH Office of Research’s programmatic initiatives focused on fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and mentorship opportunities among SOPH faculty members.
Research Focus
Public health plays a critical role in improving the health of populations and their communities. As communities face evolving public health challenges including escalating burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, reduced longevity and poor quality of life, health disparities, and environmental threats, interdisciplinary approaches are needed to address these public health challenges.
Goal
To advance a team science approach by supporting a research project that addresses impactful scientific questions and generates compelling preliminary data to support a subsequent competitive application to federal funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, et cetera.
Key Dates
RFA Released: April 23, 2026
Application Due Date: June 15, 2026
Notification of Award: July 6, 2026
Funding Period: July 13, 2026 - September 30, 2027
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Faculty Research Spotlights
Our faculty are driving research excellence in almost every discipline of public health. To learn about their career paths, ongoing projects, future directions, and why they chose the UAB School of Public Health, visit our archive of Faculty Research Spotlights.
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Public Health Research Poster Session
The SOPH Office of Research invites all UAB SOPH undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, and faculty to present, attend, and take part in the annual Public Health Research Poster Session. The Poster Session is held during National Public Health Week.
Alumni, community, and university collaborators are welcome to attend the poster session and learn about ongoing research at the UAB SOPH.
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Doctoral Student Grant Submission Curriculum
Grant Writing Course (3 credit hours): The Office of Research supports a school-wide grant-writing course for SOPH doctoral students (PUH 703: Public Health Grant Writing). This course provides in-depth exposure and hands-on experience with scientific grant writing. Students address the development of testable research hypotheses, prepare a specific aims page, draft the research strategy (significance, innovation, and approach sections), and develop a biosketch using ScienCV. This course is offered annually in the Spring.
Grant Writing Workshop (1 credit hour): The Office of Research supports a workshop (PUH 704: Public Health Grant Submission Workshop) for SOPH doctoral students who successfully completed PUH 703 and are interested in submitting their research strategy to NIH (or another relevant funding agency). The overall goal of the workshop is to walk students through the preparation of the entire grant package, including the administrative or “non-scientific” documents (e.g., budget, budget justification, applicant background and goals for fellowship training) and further refinement of the proposal draft developed in PUH 703. This course is offered immediately following PUH 703 during the summer (full-term) semester.
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School of Public Health Research Incentive Plan
The goal of this plan is to bring resources to the School of Public Health by incentivizing the submission and award of extramural research funding. There are four incentive categories available to full-time faculty with primary appointments in the School of Public Health.