The Emerging Pathogens Institute seeks members of all disciplines who are dedicated to understanding why pathogenic microorganisms emerge and re-emerge as important causes of disease. Any UF faculty member interested in working toward the EPI’s mission may become a member. Membership status is conferred after review of application and CV.
EPI members have exclusive access to professional development resources, networking and collaboration opportunities.
Faculty must be an EPI member in good standing prior to submitting requests for support. A member in good standing is defined by the following: participation at EPI events, such as the EPI Townhall, EPI Research Day, EPI Symposia and EPI Seminar Series; research program engagement and collaboration with the Institute; or service on committees and working groups.
EPI members are expected to allocate all, or a portion of their 7.5% Center IDC returns in UFirst at the time of extramural grant awards and prior to the annual allocation deadline of June 30. Please review the UFirst instrucional guide to learn how to allocate IDCs.
Benefits of EPI Membership
Travel Awards
The EPI offers two types of travel awards: one for EPI faculty members and one for trainees. Travel awards are meant to provide support for travel in alignment with advancing the EPI’s strategic plans and objectives. Applications are competitive and accepted on a continuous basis. Awards are limited to one application per faculty member and one application per individual undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellow or associate per fiscal year (July 1 through June 30).
Requests must meet the following criteria:
- Faculty must meet one of the following to be eligible: must be the primary author on the research that is to be presented at a regional, national or international conference; be recognized for a distinguished professional achievement or honor; or be engaged in other networking or collaborative activity that furthers the EPI’s strategic plans.
- To be considered eligible, trainees must be presenting at a professional conference. EPI faculty member must submit an application on a trainee’s behalf.
- Applicants must submit requests no later than 4 weeks prior to start of travel.
- Faculty and trainee travel awards can range between $250 and $4,500 (max). Applications should reflect actual anticipated travel costs and may include airfare, ground transportation, lodging, registration and per diem.
Publication Awards
The EPI has limited funds to support the publication costs of faculty research. This award can be used to offset the typical publication costs including publication fees, indexing and images. All EPI faculty are eligible for support, though priority will be given to junior faculty and first publications. Requests for publication awards can range between $250 and $3,000 (max).
Any publication support by the EPI should include the following acknowledgment: “Support for the publication of this [book, article, abstract, etc.] was provided by the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute.”
Funding Opportunity Searches
Pivot-RP is a web-based tool that provides a comprehensive source of global funding opportunities. The EPI can provide faculty custom curated funding opportunity searches based on research interests with searches delivered to inbox once a week.
IT, Data and Computational Support
The EPI offers assistance to offset expenses that support access to data and computational resources. Some of these benefits include:
- FreezerPro Sample Management System: FreezerPro is a scalable web-based sample inventory management system ideal for users managing hundreds of collections. FreezerPro provides complete sample management, tracking samples in and out of freezers, with reporting capabilities and full audit trails. The EPI maintains a limited number of FreezerPro licenses annually to allocate to members upon request.
- Rees Scientific Monitoring: Rees Scientific provides automated continuous temperature monitoring for freezers. The EPI can provide access to Rees for freezers located within the EPI building.
- HiPerGator: EPI maintains a 500 core CPU investment in HiPerGator available to EPI member labs. A small storage investment, which EPI can purchase on your behalf, is required to use our investment.
- Lab Website and Teams Channel(s): EPI can host your laboratory website, create laboratory-based Teams channels and develop process automations to manage routine lab tasks.
- Clinical Research Support: The EPI can provide limited study initiation support (RedCap and other OCR/IRB setup) for clinical research studies, risk assessments, and sample tracking. EPI can also support survey creation through Qualtrics or Microsoft Forms.
Communications and Marketing
The EPI offers assistance to help promote research and activities that further the institutional mission and vision. Some of these benefits include:
- Training to help elevate members’ faculty profiles, social media pages and more.
- Event marketing on various platforms, such as email and digital signage.
- Engagement with membership content on social media to increase reach.
- Creation of editorial and video content to add to the institute website and social.
- Access to the branded assets through the EPI Brand Center.
- External media pitching and liaisoning between membership and internal communication units. ‘