About

To apply for the Student Research Award, please provide a written proposal that describes your project's aims, objective/hypothesis, statement of need, and methodology.  This proposal should be 500 words or less.  Also, your application should include a study timeline, budget, and a budget justification.  More detailed instructions are provided within the application.

All applicants must be a genetic counseling student currently enrolled in an ACGC-accredited genetic counseling training program at the time of submission and for the duration of use (i.e. funds cannot be used after graduation and must be returned). Students are not required to be members of NSGC.

The amount of the award is up to $500. Financial need for the project can be greater, but amount requested cannot exceed $500. If JEMF funds will not be sufficient, please articulate how the funding gap will be addressed.

Students are not required to be an NSGC member but must use an NSGC guest account to access the application. To create an NSGC guest account, click here. Once you are signed into your guest account, you will be able to complete the application.

Submit application through an online application , which will open in January 2024.  We will provide the link when the applicaiton is open. The link will lead to the application, which includes more information on the application process and requirements. Because the application is submitted through an NSGC online portal, the site requires a login – either guest or paid membership. To create an NSGC guest account, click here. Once you are signed into your guest account, you will be able to complete the application.

Please complete the most recent version of the form on our website.

You can access an example of a proposal here.

This varies from year to year. We typically receive 30 or fewer.

Please include a table listing each expense with the following column headers: Service, Cost of Service, Total, and Anticipated Funding. 

Financial need for project can be greater than the JEMF award amount, but amount requested from JEMF cannot exceed $500. If JEMF funds will not be sufficient, applicants may seek other sources to make up the shortfall. Please articulate how this will be done in your submission.

Funds can be used until the project is complete or until graduation, whichever comes first. Un-used funds must be returned to JEMF.

The JEMF Advisory Group typically makes an award decision during their annual meeting during the summer. The JEMF Chair notifies all applicants and their program directors by email. A follow-up letter is sent to chosen awardees that includes a Progress/Final Report Form.

Resubmission of a student application is not permitted.

Student awardees are expected to submit a Progress/Final Report Form by June 1 in the year following their award. The form requests information about outcomes of their funded project (conference abstracts, manuscripts) and for an accounting of their expenses. An abstract of their study is required. These reports will be reviewed by the JEMF Advisory Group at the annual business meeting. Any unused funds are expected to be returned to JEMF.

Funds will be disbursed as a one-time check made payable directly to the student awardees for the amount requested, typically within a month of selection. For tax purposes, awardees are asked to account for the funding in their report. To return remaining funds, make check payable to “The National Society of Genetic Counselors,” and send to 778359 Solutions Center, Chicago, IL 60677 with a note in the memo to indicate return of JEMF student award funds.

The acknowledgment for the Student Research award must be worded as follows: "This work has been supported by the Jane Engelberg Memorial Fellowship Student Research Award, provided by the Engelberg Foundation to the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Inc."

2023 

• Elizabeth Hart: “Before and After: examining prenatal genetic counselors’ perceptions of the impact of the Roe v. Wade overturn on their practice”
• Minseo Jeong: “Incorporating Restorative Justice as a Framework and Practice for Building Relationships and Accountability in Genetic Counseling”
• Traevia Morris: “Understanding the impact of inquiring about race, ethnicity, and ancestry during pedigree construction on patients”
• Tessa Kolar: “Evaluating Family-Centered Care at BC Children’s Hospital When There Is No Genetic Counselor: Healthcare Providers’ Perspectives”
• Simone Hetherington: “Development of a Conceptual Model of Burnout in Patients during the Diagnostic Odyssey”
• Katherine Parks: “Importance of Genetic Counseling Supervision Competencies from the Perspective of New Graduates from Genetic Counseling Programs”

2022

• Daniel Abd Assamad, Adolescents' Experiences & Perspectives of Genetic Testing and its Personal Utility
• Claudia Borodziuk, Landscape of LGBTQ+ Patients' Access to Equitable Reproductive Genetics Services: A Qualitiative Study of Genetic Counselors Experiences and Perspectives 
• Mackenzie Maher, Acceptability of a bilingual chatbot of cancer genetic counseling amongst Hispanic community members
• Cheryl Xia, Developing the Patient-reported Genetic testing Utility InDex (P-GUIDE) for Prenatal Care 

2021

• Alexandra Finley, Exploring the Impact of Simulation-based Training on Genetic Counselors' Confidence to Deliver Difficult News (DDN)
• Ann-Marie Peturson, Investigating the relationship between therapeutic alliance and patient outcomes of genetic counseling
• Abigail Sveden, Introduction of the genetic counseling profession by teachers in BIPOC-majority high schools 
• Erika Chick, Genetic Diagnosis: Does it have a role in the classroom?
• Jennah Foltz, Exploring the Role of Genetic Counselors within the Emerging Field of Immunogenetics: An Assessment of Perspective and Utility from Immunologists and Genetic Counselors 

2020

• Megan Pope, Understanding Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Patient's Decision-Making to Pursue Genetic Counseling and/or Testing
• Nicole Huser, Amplifying Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Voices in Genetic Counseling Gender-Affirming Care Education
• Farid Barquet Ramos, Exploring the opportunities and challenges of utilizing a telehealth model for the remote clinical supervision of genetic counseling students
• Nicole Si Yan Lang, Next Generation Sequencing-based Newborn Screening: Parental Preferences for Identifiable Target Conditions
• Courtney Cook, Parents’ perspectives, experiences and need for support when communicating with their children about the psychiatric manifestations of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS)

2019

• Yi Liu, An interpretative phenomenological analysis: the lived experience of emerging adults at-risk for gastric cancer due to a CDH1 variant in medical management decision-making 
• Joseph Liu, Impact of ancestry-related test limitations on informed consent for clinical genetic testing
• Kathryn Reyes, Characterizing Uncertainty in Carriers of a Pathogenic Variant in ATM
• Elise Sobotka, Accessing Genetic Counseling:  The Experiences of Patients Identified by a Hereditary Cancer Screening Program
• Elysa Bond, Disclosure of genetic risk to dating partners among young adults with von Hippel-Lindau disease: When do you share?

2018

• Amber Aeilts, Reactions to Receiving Unsolicited Genetics Information from a Relative via Infographic Video
• Brighton Goodhue, Effect of Carrier Screening Educational Video on Knowledge and Intent in an OB/GYN Population 
• Lauren Seemann, Assessing Need and Utility of a Machine Learning Algorithm for Pedigree Analysis 
• Melissa Henderson, Factors that impact medical management decisions among women with pathogenic variants in moderate-risk genes associated with hereditary breast cancer
• Simina Bogatan, Assessing the Utility of an Interactive Educational Module in Facilitating Discussion of 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome between Parents and their Children 

2017

• Lauren Turner, An evaluation of patient decision making and needs following a positive NIPT result
• Natalie Waligorski, Accessibility of Prenatal Genetic Counseling Services Among Incarcerated Women
• Stephanie Wiryaman, Assessing family-based perceptions of the disorders of sex development (DSD) nomenclature
• Cheyenne Dewey, What Walls? Demystifying the Role of Race/Ethnicity in Genetic Counseling Supervisory Relationships
• Matthew Osmond, Exploring the return of raw clinical exome data in North America
• Megha Ranganathan, The Relationship Between Age-of-Onset and the Phenotypic Manifestations in Adult Onset Huntington’s Disease
• Kestutis Micke, Text messaging as an intervention: Improving mental health outcomes in parents with a newborn that has a congenital heart defect
• Stephanie Booke, Genetic counselors’ attitudes towards and practice related to psychiatric illness
• Kennedy Borle, Exploring the provision of recurrence numbers in psychiatric genetic counseling: focus on impact on patient outcomes
• Jessica Isaacs, Potential Methods to Strengthen the Counselor-Patient Alliance in a Genetic Counseling Session: Nonconscious Priming and Empathetic Phrasing

2016

• Kelly Morgan, Pilot Evaluation of a Hybrid Pre-Test Cancer Genetic Counseling Model: Video + Counseling Model Versus Counseling Only Model 
• Ayaka Suzuki, Familial Communication of Positive BRCA1/2 Results: A Relational Dialectics Theory Approach 
• Evan Hathaway, Gambling and medical decisions: The influence of risk propensity on choices related to genetically-predisposed health conditions
• Beatrix Wong, Personality traits and perfectionism in genetic counselors at risk for compassion fatigue
• Julianne Whitleigh, Do cultural or language barriers exist in the delivery of the diagnosis of Down syndrome? A study comparing the diagnosis experience of English- and Spanish-speaking parents of children with Down syndrome
• Sarah Caldwell, Genetic Counseling Student Self-Efficacy and the Supervisory Working Alliance