Established in 1959, the UF Medical Guild has been a steadfast pillar of support for UF Health and its surrounding communities. Originally formed by faculty spouses of the newly established UF College of Medicine, the Guild’s mission has endured over the years, expanding its reach to include a wider community of supporters in 2017.
The Guild’s contributions extend to the academic realm, with awards, endowments, and scholarships benefiting medical and biomedical graduate students within the College of Medicine. For senior Biomedical Sciences graduate students, the Guild sponsors two competitions: the Advancement to Candidacy Awards and the Graduate Research Awards.
Advancement to Candidacy Award
The Advancement to Candidacy Award is aimed at recognizing outstanding students in their mid-tenure after they have passed their qualifying examination in their third year of study. The Advancement to Candidacy Award recognizes both academic and research excellence. Therefore, the material required for assessment include:
1. The transcript of the student in their studies (UF COM BMS Office will provide).
2. An up-to-date biosketch, including publications, abstracts presented at meetings, honors & awards, and grant funding.
3. A letter of recommendation by the student’s dissertation mentor.
Concentration directors will nominate up to three students from their concentration for this award. Candidates will submit their nomination packets as an e-mail attachment (PDF format) to Kodi van Antwep vanantwerpk@ufl.edu and a committee made up of two faculty members from each concentration will choose the top three candidates who will receive a monetary award. All nominees will be published in the Medical Guild Research Symposium program and award winners announced at the Medical Guild Research Symposium reception on April 22, 2026.
Council of Academic Chairs Scholarship Award
The Council of Academic Chairs Scholarship is an annual award given to the graduate student who achieves top honors in the Advancement to Candidacy Competition. This scholarship was established in the Fall of 2015, initiated by several College of Medicine foundational science chairs who generously contributed personal gifts and pledges to establish the scholarship. Their aim was to establish, fund, and eventually endow a
scholarship dedicated to the highest achiever in the Advancement to Candidacy competition. Recipients of this scholarship are granted financial support to attend scientific or educational career development courses.
To support the Council of Academic Chairs Scholarship, the University of Florida Foundation has created a designated fund titled “Friends of Interdisciplinary Program in Biomedical Sciences” with the fund code 020269. Those interested in contributing to this scholarship can do so conveniently online https://www.uff.ufl.edu/OnlineGiving/FundDetail.asp?FundCode=020269
Graduate Research Awards
The purpose of the Graduate Research Award is to recognize and celebrate the exceptional quality, innovation, and impact of the graduate student research within the BMS PhD program.
This is a two-step competition whereby each concentration has an internal competition to identify a single finalist (step 1) to compete at the Medical Guild Graduate Student Research Symposium for one of seven awards (step 2): one Gold Medal, two Silver Medals, and four Bronze Medals.
For both competitions the competition involves the submission of an application packet and a 10-minute oral research presentation followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. The application packet should include:
1. A title page that includes the name of the nominee, the name of the nominee’s mentor, and the exact title of the presentation.
2. An abstract that summarizes the nominee’s research (one single-spaced page including objectives, methods, results and conclusions).
3. A research article that provides a more detailed report of the student’s research. This should include the objectives, background, significance, results, and conclusions, and should not exceed 1,500 words double-spaced. Literature citations and experimental methods should be included as an appendix, and do not count toward the word limitation. NOTE: Reprints of published manuscripts that the student has authored should not be submitted in lieu of this description.
4. The nominee’s up-to-date biosketch, including publications, abstracts presented at meetings, honors & awards, and grant funding.
Overall research accomplishments and presentations are assessed by a panel of faculty judges who rank them based on excellence. The internal concentration competition and the Medical Guild Research Competition use two different panels of faculty judges.
All seven finalists will be acknowledged in the Medical Guild Research Symposium program and award winners announced at the Medical Guild Research Symposium reception which begins immediately after the competition on April 22, 2026.
Graduate Research Honorable Mention Award
The Honorable Mention Award recognizes an additional outstanding student who competed in the internal concentration process for the Graduate Research Award but was not chosen to represent the concentration at the Medical Guild Research Symposium. Each concentration will be allowed to nominate up to one student for the Graduate Research Honorable Mention whereby their application packet will be evaluated by the Graduate Research Award Competition judges, and a single finalist will be chosen for the award. Honorable Mention Award winners will be announced at the Medical Guild Research Symposium reception on April 22, 2026.