Securing a K award is a notoriously competitive and challenging process—something Lauren Brown, PhD, a 2021 HEAN Pilot Project Awardee, knows all too well. After facing multiple rejections and writing enough, as she puts it, to "host a TikTok channel" on the experience, she persevered and was ultimately awarded funding for her K. Read more as she shares her research, personal journey, and valuable insights on navigating the early stages of an academic career.
What kind of research do you do?
My research, in general, focuses on trauma-informed care. That started, for me, almost twenty years ago working in a domestic violence shelter after undergrad. And that really set my trajectory–I learned firsthand how to transform a space into one of that was trauma-informed. And it’s not easy and it takes ongoing effort but that really set my interest in a), psychological trauma, b), culture of care spaces and c), cultural responsiveness and antiracist practices.
What is trauma-informed care?
According to the Substance Use and Mental Health Service Administration, it’s really ensuring that all providers in the care space realize that psychological trauma is a human experience that's pervasive. They learn to recognize the signs of that and to understand what they are. And then they learn to appropriately respond to them in a way that promotes healing rather than further traumatizing people.
Can you describe your experience with the HEAN Pilot Project Award?
It wasn't something I really knew about but people knew about my work and there was growing interest. And frankly, it’s something that I was going to do with or without money. I was going to find a way to do it. I would imagine that excitement and fervor came through my application. And the community-engaged piece of it, I think that people are just really excited to hear about a new tool that measures organizational trauma resilience, that measures cultural responsiveness, that is built from community voices rather than just traditional academic voices. So I got a lot of excitement and every time that I presented on it to the Community Advisory Board with the P50 I just got overwhelmingly positive feedback, just total excitement. I felt it was really the spirit of what this team wanted to support with this P50 fund.
What research are you doing for the K01 Award?
So for the K it’s actually to design and co-lead the implementation of trauma-informed care in a pediatric youth focused HIV clinic. So we spent the whole first year just working with a Steering Committee so that they could actually design what they wanted for their clinic and for their hospital. And so now they actually said that they wanted a video, like a series of micro trainings, and so now we’re in the process of designing those micro trainings.
And the final piece of this is there’s a patient level and that's where we’ll actually start to screen patients for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health symptoms related to trauma. And from there we’ll start to do brief interventions to see if we’re having a stronger impact on PTSD rates, because at this point what our preliminary data shows is that it’s about a 46% rate of folks who meet a preliminary diagnosis of PTSD in this pediatric/adolescent-focused HIV clinic. And so that's almost half of people that are being served. So you can see that this is a very hidden issue that can cause a host of issues with someone’s ability to really stay engaged in treating a very treatable but chronic illness.
What has been your experience working with mentors for your K?
I have a team of mentors and I have two that are my primary mentors. They’re both at Vanderbilt. And they’ve been excellent. They’ve just, really, every step of the way helped me in my career development, talking through ideas ad hoc, regular meetings, reading my papers and editing them. Same thing with my grants. They’ve been excellent and really a big part of my success. And so from that I had to create a career development plan. So a K, it’s 100% doing three research aims, scientific aims, but it’s also another 100% really doing career advancement aims. And some of those aims were relative to implementation science and one of my loftier goals was to become a fellow with the HIGH IRI. But it’s like a global-focused HIV Infectious Disease Implementation Science Fellowship and it’s really competitive. And so I got in on my first application and I think a lot of that has to do with my mentors and their connections and how much they’ve helped me improve my work. And all that to say it’s been a great experience.
What advice do you have for those applying for a K award?
The biggest advice is to just don’t give up. I wrote it three times and before that I wrote a K12 that was unsuccessful. And then between that I wrote another K12 that was funded. I wrote it as an intramural at Vanderbilt and it actually was funded as an extramural at the NIH. And so that allowed me to have like a stop gap funding source between the second and third submission. So ultimately I’ve written a lot of Ks and I kind of feel like I could write a book on Ks or at least host a TikTok channel on it. But yeah, really just not giving up. It’s really hitting the sweet spot of showing how you’re really good at X and Y and Z but you need a different QRS if your career is actually going to take off like it needs to. And folks really have to tell that story of like, “I’ve worked with these people in this institution enough that we have a collaboration. You don’t need to worry that this is going to fizzle out, but we haven't done this one thing that I intend to do and I can’t do it unless I have this money." So you have to really like tell a double-sided story at every turn with a K. It’s an investment in you as a scientist. It’s not just investing in your research, it’s investing in your career.
Do you have any tips for writing a K?
I guess one thing that I talked about is really like approaching a K with a growth mindset. [Carol Dweck] really came up with the idea of like growth and abundance mindsets versus a fixed mindset. So I think it’s the idea that like every time you hit a wall, whether you get difficult feedback from a mentor or you get a “not discussed” that it’s not over or like devastating, that you see it as a way to really kind of grow from it and catapult in to something that's stronger. Absolutely, with my K mentors, they helped me revise my K so many times. And many times I’m like, “Can you just tell me what you want me to say?” And of course they didn't. They’re just like, “No, this still isn’t right,” that kind of thing. But it really, really, really was the most beneficial thing. Don’t try to write a K by yourself, you know what I mean? Then there’s a lot of hubris in that and you’re ultimately not going to end up with the best product because the best product has had many different eyes and experiences and expertise. Your mentor doesn't have to be somebody that does exactly what you do. For example, one of my primary mentors is an infectious disease physician that – you know, she’s not a behavioral health practitioner. And then the other one is a health policy expert. And so they brought very different things to my work. Like I knew what I needed to do from a behavioral health standpoint but I needed other people who could speak to other types of reviewers. And so I think really diversifying your mentor team and making sure that it’s not too big of a team, because then you get too much input and you certainly don’t want it to be too small either. So like I said, there’s a lot of sweet spots you have to get.
I used a lot of people’s Ks that came before me like my mentors to aesthetically design what I wanted to include. And that helped me. It can be really overwhelming to think how to structure something like this. And so it helped me with the design from the beginning and it also helped me I think be thorough and include everything that needed to be in there. Like I said, I really think it’s important for folks to go through some kind of studio to their institution for people to read it and give feedback before they submit it. A lot of times that’s associated with like a 50% increased likelihood of getting it funded.
What is your favorite part of doing research?
Well I love it. It’s not a job for me. It’s how I do activism. It’s how I’m able to actually, you know, systematically change the world. And so it’s not something that feels like work I have to get up and do. It’s something that drives me in all of my life and truly it’s just so exciting. I have such a thirst for knowledge and I get to do a job where that’s just an endless joy for me. So I’ve had people be like, “How can you like the academic thing where you have to always write and that rat race?” And I’m like, “It doesn't feel like that to me. It’s such a joy and a privilege to be able to creatively envision ideas of how the world could be different and hopefully better and be a part of that. And that's how I see research.
What do you do outside of your research?
I really like to travel. I like to write poetry. I like to write songs. I have two kids. I like to hang out with them. I like to take them on trips because they love flying and going to new countries.
This series highlights the consortium's talented Early Stage Investigators (ESIs) and their work on health equity. We take a deep dive into who they are, what makes them passionate about their work, and more.
Lauren Brown, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine at Meharry Medical College, where she is the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Social Determinants of Health. Her research is currently supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.