In October 2023, the Network launched its’ first Early Career Researcher (ECR) funding call. The funding was to support a variety of activities including, public engagement, conference attendance, lab visits and other networking opportunities.
This funding was open to all ECRs working within circadian science, sleep science and mental health research.
When the call ended in December 2023 the Network received almost 30 applications! These applications ranged widely in their proposed activities, from conference attendance, training support and a public engagement podcast. The funding call had reached ECRs from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Canada, the USA, Brazil and Australia.
It was amazing to receive so many wonderful applications, and it made choosing the awardees a very difficult job for the Network ECR Team.
After careful consideration, the ECR Team were delighted to award the ECR funding to 8 applicants. The successful applicants are:
Carolina Guidolin: Carolina is a PhD student investigating light sensitivity at the Max Planck Institute and Technical University of Munich in Germany. Carolina has a passion for communicating science to a wide audience and ensuring it is accessible to the public.
Emiliana Tonini: Emiliana is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on integrating clinical, wearable, environmental, and genetic measures to understand pathophysiological mechanisms, with an aim to develop a personalised, early intervention, evidence-based model for mood disorders in youth.
Emily Stanyer: Emily is a postdoctoral researcher working in the Experimental and Clinical Sleep Medicine group at the University of Oxford. She is interested in investigating the mechanistic relationships between sleep, health, and disease with a particular interest in understanding how sleep may contribute to mental health disorders.
Ilaria Pina: Ilaria is a research associate at Newcastle University working in the area of health inequalities to improve holistic health in individuals living with severe mental illness. She is interested in the impact of sleep on severe mental health conditions and health-related behaviours.
Jacob Crouse: Jacob is a NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre. He has a major interest in the potential role of sleep and circadian dysregulation in the aetiology and course of youth-onset depressive and bipolar disorders. He is currently working to identify the essential information about chronobiology and chronotherapy that clinicians should know to optimise their care of people with bipolar disorders.
Lorna Caddick: Lorna is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh interested in co-production with adolescents to better understand the use of technology in sleep and circadian rhythms with links to mental health and physical activity. She is eager to meaningfully engage the younger generation in research.
Marina Carpena: Marina is a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of Pelotas, with a focus on understanding the relationship between sleep and mental health across the lifespan. She is investigating how sleep-polygenic components interact with cortisol concentration, potentially leading to psychiatric disorders.
Mirim Shin: Mirim is a research fellow with the Youth Mental Health & Technology Team at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney. Her research focusses on exploring individual illness trajectories for three common subtypes of depressive disorders—psychosis, anxious depression, and bipolar spectrum—based on neurodevelopmental, hyperarousal, and circadian rhythm mechanisms.
Be sure to watch this space to find out how the successful applicants used their funding.
The Network is so thankful to everyone who shared this ECR opportunity and especially thankful to all of the ECRs who applied to the Network’s first funding call. It was so exciting to receive applications from across the world, and we hope to receive many more in the future.
For anyone who missed out on this funding call, don’t worry, the Network will be announcing more exciting funding opportunities very soon!
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