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Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 cover art

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01

Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01

Written by: Sarah Dobson
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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 https://sarahdobson.co to learn more.

© 2026 Significant Impact: from K Award to Your First Big R01 Careers Economics Personal Success
Episodes
  • Whose Career Are You Building?

    Whose Career Are You Building?
    May 28 2026

    Your calendar is full. You're productive. But if someone asked you to describe your research vision in two sentences, you might struggle. In this episode, I explore why so many early career researchers end up building careers out of other people's priorities, and why the pattern is so hard to break. Part of it is your own conditioning to be helpful and accommodating. And part of it is that the people around you were socialized to expect exactly that from you. I introduce the golden goose concept and make the case that protecting your capacity for the work that only you can do isn't selfish. It's the whole point.

    Interested in joining the next cohort of K to R Essentials? Join the waitlist at https://sarahdobson.co/k2r
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    19 mins
  • Mentors Can't Do This For You

    Mentors Can't Do This For You
    May 14 2026

    Making the transition from mentored researcher to independent investigator requires things your mentors can help you with and things they can't. In this episode, I break down what this transition actually asks of you, where mentoring is really beneficial, and where even the best mentors hit a limit. I share stories from three graduates who had outstanding mentorship and still needed something more to develop the clarity, self-trust, and judgment this career stage demands. If you have great mentors and you still feel stuck, this one's for you.

    Interested in joining the next cohort of K to R Essentials? Join the waitlist at https://sarahdobson.co/k2r
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    14 mins
  • Ten Lessons From Ten Years

    Ten Lessons From Ten Years
    Apr 30 2026

    Tomorrow this business turns 10 years old. And somewhere along the way, I also passed 100 podcast episodes without any fanfare. So today I'm pausing to mark both milestones and share 10 lessons from the journey — on finding your focus, trusting your instincts, being reliable, saying what's true, building consistency, finding your people, creating environments worth working in, staying in dialogue with yourself, growing into someone new, and defining success for yourself. These are the lessons that have shaped how I run my business, and they're the ones I think matter most for your research career too.

    Interested in joining the next cohort of K to R Essentials? Join the waitlist at https://sarahdobson.co/k2r
    Show More Show Less
    30 mins
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