Seeking Guidance: Overcoming Rejection and Finding Support in High-Impact Research
TL;DR
I am a microbiologist and faculty member aiming to contribute to pandemic preparedness in Africa. Despite rejections from several Effective Altruism opportunities, I am committed to transitioning into vaccine design, specifically focusing on phage-based vaccines. I secured a research visit position at the University of Waterloo but faced funding challenges, with rejections from Open Philanthropy and EA Funds. I seek advice on coping with feelings of inadequacy, understanding what projects funders find impactful, evaluating the potential impact of phage vaccine development, and identifying alternative funding sources for research visits.
I am currently grappling with feelings of inadequacy in my efforts to make a high impact. As a faculty member and microbiologist, I believe pandemic preparedness is critically important for Africa.
To contribute to this field, I applied to various Effective Altruism (EA) opportunities to enhance my understanding and refine my impact. Unfortunately, most of these opportunities did not consider me a “good fit,” with the latest rejection being particularly discouraging.
After attending a Bluedot course on Pandemic Preparedness, I was inspired to transition into vaccine design and research. Specifically, I decided to focus on developing a phage-based vaccine to gain the necessary skills for vaccine development. I secured a research visit position at the University of Waterloo but needed funding to attend.
I applied for support through the Open Philanthropy career program and the EA Long-Term Future Fund, believing my goals aligned with their objectives. However, Open Philanthropy declined my application, and although EA Funds initially considered my request, they ultimately rejected it after I asked for a quick response.
I have several questions:
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How do you cope with the feeling of not meeting the high expectations associated with making a significant impact?
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What types of career activities or projects do these funders typically view as high-impact and worth supporting?
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Do you believe pursuing a career in phage vaccine development can truly make a significant impact?
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Are there any available funding sources for research visits like mine that you are aware of?
Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences.
It can be really hard to internalize this but I thought it might be worth a quick reminder that your value as a person has nothing to do with how much impact you have. You are clearly an incredible person trying hard to live a good life and you deserve all the happiness in the world for it!
On 2) I haven’t heard of phage vaccines being particularly neglected compared the the rest of society and haven’t heard of it being prioritized in EA spaces. One thing you could do though is get into policy and work with the Africa CDC on biosecurity and biosafety practices. If you really want to do lab work I think talking to the folks formerly at Alvea about potential vaccine directions might be helpful.
A post by the former Alvea folks, in case it helps you get in touch with them.
Regarding #1, I would remember that orgs giving assistance optimize for avoiding Type 1 rather than Type 2 errors. This means, because of their limited resources, that they are much more interested in making sure their deployment of resources do not go to bad recipients rather than making sure that every potential good recipient is supported by their program (which would be impossible anyway). So while acceptance into a competitive program might be indicative of merit, rejection from many programs might not indicate lack of merit.
I would also listen to Sophia Balderson’s (founder of Impactful Animal Advocacy, now Hive) interview on the How I Learned to Love Shrimp podcast.
Basically, keep considering whether the path you are pursuing is the way to go, but rejection is not dispostive of the question as there are lots of rejections of worthy applicants.