Científico Latino Academy

(for first-year graduate students)

Cientifico Latino Academy (also known as the first-year graduate program) is a

10-month mentorship program that supports graduate students (GSMI Alumni) as they navigate their first year in graduate school.

This program provides GSMI alumni with access to small mentorship groups, community building events, professional development workshops, scientific training and career exploration.

We have served 336 first-year graduate students in our program between 2021-2025.

Demographic information on our first-year graduate students (2021-2025):

52% identified as Latinx, 19% as Black, 2.4% as Indigenous
69% of our cohort identified as women
54% applicants were first-generation (first-gen) college students
62% applicants were from low-income backgrounds

For any questions, please contact: gsmi@cientificolatino.com

Thank you to our partners!

This work is supported by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and Simons Foundation.

2026 CIENTífico Latino Academy scholarship

In 2024, we launched a graduate school scholarship fund to cover 1st year graduate school expenses for thirty-four scholars and provided $42,500 in scholarship funds (thank you to the the Burroughs Wellcome Fund for their support). In 2025, we provided a total of $25,000 in scholarship funds to support 25 students, part of our first-year graduate student mentorship program

Thank you to the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and Burroughs Wellcome Fund for their support!

Purpose: In 2026, we expect to provide 20 scholarships of $1000 to cover 1st year graduate school expenses for 20 Científico Latino Academy scholars (who are GSMI 2025 alumni enrolled in graduate school).

The funds can be used for general educational expenses, such as tuition, application fees , preparation material, academic courses, academic conference registration, and school supplies i.e. laptops.

Only twenty 2026 Científico Latino Academy scholars will be selected for this scholarship, the recipients will be selected based on academic merit, need-based, and contributions to the scientific community. Please note, we define academic merit broadly, this can include from publishing a research paper, presenting a poster at a research conference, working on scientific outreach work or pursuing college/graduate studies while navigating unique circumstances.

Eligibility: You must be enrolled in graduate school in a Master's or PhD program this Fall 2026 and must be a 2026 Científico Latino Academy scholar. This scholarship application is open to GSMI Alumni (class of 2025) enrolled in graduate school and in our Científico Latino Academy program, however only twenty will be selected this year.

Timeline: TBA. We will interview twenty candidates mid-October and publish our list of twenty Científico Latino Academy scholarship recipients at the end of October. We expect awards to be distributed in November.

The application survey will only be made available to 2026 Científico Latino Academy scholars. If you have any questions, please email contact@cientificolatino.com.

2026 Científico Latino Academy

TEstimonials

"The Alumni Program was my rock during my first year in graduate school. The webinars were extremely helpful to expose me to new areas I haven't explored previously, and the mentorship pods gave me the support I needed during stressful periods of time. Having to navigate everything that happened over the course of the year by myself, I truly do not know how I could have managed it."

"The CL Alumni program made a huge difference in my first year of PhD experience! The workshops were so insightful and even things as small as celebrating wins on Slack were so huge. The constant affirmation from the CL team made me feel like I had the tools to succeed, despite so many external factors telling me I shouldn’t have ended up in academia in the first place. I recommend CL to any grad-school-curious people I encounter."

"The biotech and pharma workshops were very helpful as many academics are not super familiar with the field as it is very different. Learning about the basics of drug discovery gave me a good idea of the industry and how to further learn more about different aspects of R&D."

Graduate student webinaRS

Follow us on Eventbrite to register for our upcoming webinars, and check out our YouTube channel for recordings of these workshops and more!