For the past 25 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has promoted diversity in medical education by offering the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program. Four-year postdoctoral research awards are offered to historically disadvantaged physicians who are committed to developing careers in academic medicine and to serving as role models for students and faculty of similar backgrounds.
Each Amos Scholar selected (up to eight each year) receives an annual stipend up to $75,000, complemented by a $30,000 annual grant toward support of research activities. Each scholar studies and conducts research in association with a senior faculty member located at an academic medical center noted for the training of young faculty.
Now the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is expanding its program to include at least one postdoctoral fellow in dentistry.
The program is named for Harold Amos, who was the first African-American to chair a department, now the Department of Microbiology and Medical Genetics, at the Harvard Medical School. A graduate of Springfield College, Dr. Amos earned a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1952. He taught at Harvard for nearly a half century. Professor Amos died in 2003.
