# Cornell FIRST

> **NIH NIH U54** · CORNELL UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $5,141,750

## Abstract

Cornell University aims to increase the number of minoritized faculty in the biological, biomedical, and
health sciences through establishing an NIH FIRST Program at Cornell University. Cornell FIRST will
support the hiring and retention of 10 new assistant professors from groups underrepresented in their fields,
while transforming institutional climate into a culture of inclusive excellence. The strength of Cornell’s
program is its foundational roots as a complex private institution with a public mission, with its founding
based on support for diversity, a culture of interdisciplinary research, and a track record of catalyzing
change at different scales that were institutionalized. Given Cornell’s success in establishing programs for
the effective development and support of early-career faculty, particularly those underrepresented in their
fields, Cornell is in an excellent position to test the hypothesis that FIRST Cohort faculty will be
successful in an environment that supports advocacy through sponsorship, consistent and
individual-centered mentoring, and evidence-based professional development. We further
hypothesize that Cornell’s institutional culture and scientific excellence will be enhanced with the
hiring of a FIRST Cohort of diverse faculty. Cornell’s FIRST program features interdisciplinary hiring of
faculty underrepresented in their fields, across six colleges and 20 departments, with a focus on retention,
career development, and evaluation. Cornell proposes 1) to hire a diverse cohort of 10 new faculty into
3 research clusters, taking advantage of Cornell’s existing interdisciplinary field system approach where
faculty are organized by research interest rather than by department, within broad areas of quantitative
biomedical sciences, infection biology, and health equity; 2) foster sustainable institutional culture
change using novel combinations of institutional policies that impact hiring, mentoring, promotion and
tenure, salary equity, and other initiatives aimed at enhancing compositional diversity, retention, and
success; 3) enhance faculty development, retention, progression, and promotion building on Cornell’s
track record of successfully developing and implementing cutting edge programs that effectively support
faculty through their career, particularly those underrepresented in their fields; and 4) to evaluate and learn
from our hiring, climate, and faculty development approaches by identifying which strategies and
activities are most effective and sustainable at an institutional scale assessing our progress to ensure
that they are developed and implemented in an effective manner, and effectively interact with the FIRST
CEC. We expect that the Cornell FIRST program will successfully hire, retain, and support 10 new faculty
underrepresented in their fields, while fostering sustainable institutional culture change to support inclusive
excellence. Cornell FIRST will increase faculty diversity in the biological, biomedical, a...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10491950
- **Project number:** 5U54CA267738-02
- **Recipient organization:** CORNELL UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Avery August
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $5,141,750
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-21 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10491950

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10491950, Cornell FIRST (5U54CA267738-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10491950. Licensed CC0.

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