All the events here are relevant to people working in dementia research. If you would like to add your own you can submit an event
Faculty Uplift Virtual Summit
July 13 - July 16
Lead your research group at a higher level, without taking it all back onto your own desk.
When something is not working, the reflex is to step in and fix it yourself. That is usually the wrong move. Four days of practical sessions from the Glia-Leadership on better ways to lead your team, and on protecting or rebuilding your own well-being in the process.
Free 48-hour access to each day. The VIP Pass keeps it all for a year, $79.
Click HereTHE FOUR DAYS
More than 20 talks from coaches who work with academics, most of them former academics themselves, alongside researchers and academic leaders. You watch on your own schedule and pick what fits your week. Topics span leadership, mentoring, team systems, grant and scientific writing, making the right decisions, and protecting your own well-being.
Day 1: YOU
Wellbeing, Identity & Mindset
The skills that keep the job from hollowing you out. Burnout, identity, the comparison trap, and what it actually takes to protect your own well-being inside an academic career.
- Peter Anderson, PhD PCC – Inner Citadel Consulting – Get off the Burnout Bus – Self-Compassion and Agency for Overworking Faculty – Why high autonomy and high uncertainty are a burnout recipe — and two immediately usable skills to start slowing the cycle down.
- Brielle Harbin, PhD – Your Cooperative Colleague – The Faculty Comparison Trap – Why You Feel Behind (Even When You’re Not) – What is actually driving that quiet calculation when a colleague announces a new publication — and why it has very little to do with your work.
- Whitney Swander, MPP – Whitney Swander Coaching & Facilitation – Beyond Achievement: – The Soul-led Life Audit – A practical framework for examining where your time and energy go versus what actually makes you feel most alive — and one action to close the gap.
- Laura Timm, ACC – Laura Timm Coaching – The Worry Habit – Practical Mindfulness Skills for Anxiety and Uncertainty in Research Leadership – Why worry runs on autopilot as a learned habit — and a simple three-step method to work with it rather than push through it.
- Echo Rivera, PhD – Creative Research Communications – How to Love and Leverage Public Speaking for Your Academic Career – The myths most academics still believe about presentations in 2026 — and practical tips for building the kind of talk that actually changes audiences, policies, and networks.
Day 2: YOUR RESEARCH
Writing, publishing, funding, and the systems that make it sustainable
The systems that keep research moving when your schedule is already full. Writing consistently, building a multi-year funding strategy, and creating real time for deep work without working more.
- Anna Clemens, PhD – Researchers’ Writing Academy – How to Publish Consistently with a Busy Professor Schedule – The most common mistakes that stall consistent publication — and whether AI actually helps or gets in the way.
- Tanya Garcia, PhD – Coaching with Tanya / UNC Chapel Hill – Feedback That Builds Writers, Not Anxiety – Why vague feedback backfires, and how two simple questions can make any comment more effective without raising defenses.
- Ana Pineda, PhD – I Focus and Write – Design Your Multi-Year Strategy to Get Funded – How to plan across multiple funding calls, why failure needs to be built into the process, and which elements — from papers to science communication — actually maximize your chances.
- Stefanie Robel, PhD – GLIA-Leadership – The Four Levers of Time Management – Four concrete levers — how you spend your hours, how much you protect for deep work, the energy you bring to it, and the boundaries that hold most weeks — that create real, usable time without working more.
- Morgan Giddings, PhD – SCI-Foundry – Why Well-Written Proposals Still Fail – The Model-First Shift That Makes Them Fundable – You did everything right and still got rejected. The problem isn’t your prose — it’s that fundability is decided before the writing starts. We’ll trace what a scientific model actually is (not your hypothesis), why reviewers can only fight for ideas they can hold in their head, and how to find the exact break point in your own proposals.
Day 3: YOUR TEAM
Leadership, mentoring, collaboration, and what it actually means to be the boss
Nobody taught you how to be someone’s boss. A full day on the leadership and mentoring skills that running a research group actually requires.
- Jen Heemstra, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis – Four Strategies to Learn the Leadership Skills You Need to Lead Your Research Group – A clear picture of the skills needed to lead yourself, lead others, and develop future leaders — with concrete examples for how to actually learn and practice them.
- Stefanie Robel, PhD – GLIA-Leadership – The Agile Research Engine – A project management approach that fits academic research – How to apply agile principles to research workflows so projects keep moving even when priorities shift, funding changes, or the data takes you somewhere unexpected.
- Rhonda Sutton, PhD – Purposeful Path Consulting / NC State University – Mentoring and Leadership for Faculty Success – How to build a mentoring plan, adapt to different communication styles, and create an environment where graduate students can hold themselves accountable.
- Jennifer Askey, PhD PCC – Jennifer Askey, Coach – Discovering Your Collaborative Working Style – A Framework for Figuring Out How You — and Your Colleagues — Work Best – A practical introduction to the Belbin Team Roles framework, plus a clearer picture of your own natural tendencies and what frustrates you about others.
- Chris Esparza – CO Create Consulting – Leading Without a Script – How Research Team Leads Can Navigate Uncertainty with Clarity, Curiosity, and Connection – Three skills: how to listen for what a team needs before rushing to solutions, how to use curiosity in mentoring and delegation, and how to create simple rhythms that support trust.
Day 4: YOUR CAREER
Career strategy, advancement, and navigating the landscape ahead
The landscape is shifting and most of the official guidance has not caught up. How to find funding, read the job market clearly, and make career decisions based on your own values rather than academia’s definition of success.
- Shari A. Robinson, PhD – Coaching with Conviction, LLC – Leading for Flourishing – Applying the Limerick Framework for Action to Transform Organizational Culture – How to move beyond fragmented wellness initiatives toward systemic change — and at least one actionable leadership strategy to embed wellbeing into your organization or team.
- NCFDD / Lisa Hanasono, PhD – NCFDD / Bowling Green State University – Navigating Uncertainty in Higher Ed: Research Funding Strategies – Panel discussion – Strategies for identifying alternative funding sources, sustaining progress on existing research, and adapting when the landscape shifts under you.
- Nafisa Jadavji, PhD FAHA – Southern Illinois University Carbondale – Increasing Transparency in the Academic Job Market – What the data actually shows about who lands faculty positions, and practical insights for those navigating a market that is not equally legible to everyone who enters it.
- Jennifer Polk, PhD – From PhD to Life – What If Up Means Out? – Rethinking Success, Security, and Meaningful Work in and Beyond Academia – How to distinguish job security from career security, and how to make career decisions based on your own values rather than academia’s narrow definition of success.
- Morgan Giddings, PhD – SCI-Foundry – Create to Lead – The Creative Engine Behind Real Academic Impact – Creativity isn’t just for artists. For researchers in this moment, it’s the skill that determines whether your work still moves. Create to Lead traces why, and what to do about it.
Who this summit is for:
Research team leads, principal investigators, lab heads, senior postdocs heading toward independence, and faculty who manage people, projects, and grants.
