On February 4, 2026, the UNC-Chapel Hill Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH, pronounced “birch”) program announced its selection of three scholars for the first BIRCWH cohort. Read more about these rising women’s health researchers in the original story, UNC BIRCWH Program Announces New Cohort of Women’s Health Scholars.
About BIRCWH at UNC-Chapel Hill
Last year, UNC-Chapel Hill received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) BIRCWH award in August. The multiple principal investigator team includes Center for Thriving Communities’ Co-Director and Director of Abacus Evaluation, Gaurav Dave, MBBS, DrPH, MPH. Dr. Dave will lead program expertise in community engagement and evaluation. Program leadership includes MPIs Lisa Rahangdale, MD, MPH, and Michelle Meyer, PhD, MPH, as well as Recruitment Officer Keisha Gibson, MD, MPH. Center for Thriving Communities staff are leading the the BIRCWH program with Mary Wolfe McKinley, PhD, MSc as Program Director and Kristen Witkemper, MPH, as Program Coordinator. The award is administered in the Center for Women’s Health Research at UNC-Chapel Hill.
“BIRCWH is a National Institutes of Health mentored career development program designed to connect junior faculty to senior faculty with shared interest in interdisciplinary research relevant to women’s health and sex as a biological variable. The program supports each scholar for a minimum of two years during which they will receive funding and protected time for research efforts to generate preliminary data needed for an individual K- or R- equivalent grant submission.”
Want to learn more about the UNC BIRCWH program mission and leadership? Refer to the original story published in August 2025, UNC Receives “Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health” Award.