The ECHO Coordinating Center is pleased to announce that the NIH ECHO Program Office selected 12 investigators to receive research funding through the ECHO Opportunities and Innovation Fund (OIF).

The OIF is an NIH-funded grant mechanism to support early career investigators who propose projects that introduce new research, tools, and technologies to the ECHO Program. Each OIF investigator is sponsored by an ECHO award.

For this OIF round, NIH requested proposals focusing on the following areas:

• ECHO Cycle 2 Scientific Priorities defined by the ECHO Steering Committee
• The Science of Operations, specifically:
  • Return of individual research results
  • Refinement of measures

Congratulations to the awardees! See below for the full list of awardees and their research proposal titles.

1. Jyoti Angal, PhD – Elliott Award, Avera McKennan
   Examining the Impact of Returning Individual Developmental Screening Results on Opportunities for Early Intervention Access among Children in the ECHO Program
2. Rana Chehab, PhD, MPH, RD – Ferrara Award, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
   Neighborhood Park Environment and Child Growth Trajectories and Obesity Risk: Opportunities to Identify Sensitive Windows of Exposure and Effect Modifiers
3. Lauren Eaves, PhD, IBCLC – O’Shea Award, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
   G-computation for Public Health Interventions: An ECHO-wide Case Study of Lead and Preterm Birth
4. Jason Giles, PhD – Dabelea Award, University of Colorado Denver
   Implementation of a Phenome-Wide Association Study for Identifying Childhood Asthma Pleiotropy in ECHO 
5. Lauren Hoskovec, PhD – Dabelea Award, Colorado State University
   Identifying Windows of Susceptibility to Wildfire Smoke Exposure: Growth Trajectories and Mitigation 
6. Meghan JaKa, PhD – Nguyen Award, Health Partners Institute
   Describing Longitudinal Patterns in Positive Health During Childhood and Correlated Assets Using a Strength-based Research Paradigm
7. McKenzie K. Jancsura, PhD, RN – Slaughter Award, Ohio State University
   Exploring Pregnancy Outcomes’ Influence on Childhood Cardiovascular Health (EPIC-Heart Health)
8. Kelsey Magee, PhD – Hipwell Award, University of Pittsburgh
   Psychosocial Stress Before and During Pregnancy: Implications for Child Neurodevelopment
9. Daniel Mork, PhD – Wright Award, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
   ECHO-wide Precision Environmental Health Analyses of Air Pollution Exposure and Birth Outcomes  
10. Allison Sherris, PhD – Karr Award, University of Washington
    Establishing an ECHO-wide Sibling Cohort
11. Ashley Song PhD, MPH – Lyall Award, Johns Hopkins University
    Patterns of Social Determinants of Health and Environmental Exposures in Child Cognitive and Behavioral Development
12. Rachel Tomlinson, PhD – Coordinating Center Award, University of California, San Francisco
    Precision in Childhood Executive Functioning Measurement: Advancing Efficiency of Evidence Accumulation (EEA) for Developmental Insights