The William T. Grant Foundation is pleased to award a supplemental grant to William T. Grant Scholar Guanglei Hong. The two-year, $85,000 award will support her professional mentorship of two junior researchers of color.

Dr. Hong serves as assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. She will be mentoring Yihua Hong and Bing Yu, two promising postdoctoral fellows. Bing Yu will focus on further developing methodological skills for evaluating and improving services for English language Learners. Yihua Hong will be studying how high-stakes testing policies affect teachers and students.

Established in 1980, the William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Program supports five-year research projects and career development for promising early-career researchers. Mentoring has always been an integral part of the Scholars Program, as applicants are required to assemble a strong team of mentors for guidance and consultation. The Foundation developed the supplemental awards to allow the Scholars to further develop as mentors themselves. The Foundation is also committed to increasing the number of people of color at higher levels of the career ladder in research. In the short-term, the Foundation aims to build Scholars’ mentoring skills and junior researchers’ research skills and networks. Over time, we hope that the Scholars become better mentors throughout their careers and become more attuned to the career development challenges disproportionately faced by their junior colleagues of color.

Eligibility is restricted to William T. Grant Scholars who are in the first to third years of the five-year Scholars program; junior researchers must be full-time doctoral students or postdoctoral fellows. Scholars and junior researchers collaborate to create a mentoring plan that helps the Scholar become a stronger mentor and better attuned to the career development challenges disproportionately faced by junior colleagues of color, and that helps the junior researcher develop stronger research skills and professional networks. Applications are screened for the quality of the proposed mentoring plan and research projects, and the promise of the junior researcher for a career in research.