Annotated HHMI Gilliam Scientific Leadership Statement
By Ya'el Courtney, PhD | Stanford Postdoc, Harvard PhD in Neuroscience
Awarded the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship, 2021
This is the Scientific Leadership statement I submitted with my successful 2021 HHMI Gilliam Fellowship application. The prompt asked me to describe my leadership approach, how it informs the science I do, and how I've led and will lead efforts to advance science for a diverse society.
The Gilliam application changed since 2021. See my intro to the annotated materials for details. The Leadership Statement prompt and approach, though, has stayed fundamentally the same.
Opening: A Concrete Leadership Story
My leadership philosophy is characterized by enthusiasm, honesty, and using any position I hold to help others. I became a manager at a Wendy's when I was 17. This placed me in charge of shifts full of people older than me, who were not initially thrilled about this, but I earned the respect and affection of my crew by learning to lead with transparency and by example. I told my crew what our goals were and why, and then I dove into meeting those goals alongside them. If our goal was to be locked up by midnight after a particularly hectic night? I put gloves on with a smile on my face, turned on some peppy music, and washed dishes in the back for an hour so that my crew member could focus on her closing tasks.
Most Gilliam Scientific Leadership statements open with a story about leading a lab project, an outreach event, or a journal club. I opened with Wendy's. Not because I was reaching for "scrappy and relatable," but because that's actually where I learned to lead. I was 17, in charge of crews of people much older than me, and the only way to earn their respect was to show up and do the work alongside them. Every leadership instinct I have now traces back to that.
A side effect: it helped me stand out. Reviewers see the same handful of leadership story shapes over and over. Mine was a real one from a real moment, with a specific image (washing dishes at midnight so my coworker could finish closing) that's hard to forget.
If you're thinking about using an unconventional leadership example, ask yourself whether it genuinely shaped you. If yes, write about it. If not, that'll come through.
Extending the Philosophy
This exemplifies the approach that I use today in that I approach challenges with a vibrantly positive attitude, am willing to work just as hard as the team I'm leading, and am communicative and honest about the group's goals. This has enabled my tendency to introduce new techniques to my labs as I tackle challenges with open arms, a resilience to temporary failures, and the hard work necessary to see success. I will continue to lead by enthusiastic example accompanied by my genuine love for learning and discovery as a PhD student and teaching fellow, in my next stage as a postdoc, and ultimately as a professor and the head of my own lab.
This paragraph bridges the Wendy's story to my scientific work. Without it, the fast food story would sit there disconnected from everything else in the application. With it, the story becomes the foundation for how I operate in a lab.
I also explicitly named my future trajectory in this paragraph: PhD student now, then postdoc, then professor. That gives the reviewer a mental picture of where this leadership philosophy is going to keep showing up over time.
A Second Story: Modeling Great Leadership
My leadership style was also sculpted in large part by my time in the BP-ENDURE program at Washington University in St. Louis under the mentorship of Dr. Erik Herzog. Dr. Herzog showed me the transformative power of a mentor who is not only willing, but enthusiastic to connect his mentees to leaders in the field, to peers whose advice they may find useful, and to any professional experience he thinks might be useful. I was fortunate to travel with him to two annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience, a conference that attracts over 30,000 people a year. I will never forget walking into rooms with him when he'd turn to me and say "okay, who do you want to know in this room? I will walk you up to them, introduce you as a superstar and tell them what you are interested in talking to them about." He helped me overcome my trepidation of meeting reputable scientists and talking to top-tier graduate schools. I have now adopted this empowering networking approach with my mentees (~20 right now!). I've connected mentees to research technician jobs, emboldened them to apply for graduate school, and catalyzed many faculty meetings for students who felt tentative about reaching out. I look forward to continuing this momentum throughout my career, as I hope to someday be the life-changing professor and PI to other underrepresented students that Dr. Herzog was to me.
After establishing my own leadership philosophy with the Wendy's story, I used this paragraph to show that I'd also been shaped by watching excellent mentorship up close. One story about leading, one story about being led. They balance each other out.
The Dr. Herzog quote is the part of this paragraph I worked hardest on. Including his actual words ("okay, who do you want to know in this room?") puts the reader right next to me at SfN. They can hear him. That's much more memorable than describing him as "generous with introductions."
I also made sure to name what I'd done with that modeling. I didn't just admire Dr. Herzog's approach in the abstract. I adopted it with my own 20 mentees, connected them to jobs, encouraged them to apply to grad school, helped them set up faculty meetings. That turns the paragraph from a thank-you note into evidence of leadership.
What Makes This Essay Work
The Leadership Statement is about 400 words, which means every word has to earn its place. A few things I think worked:
I used two stories instead of a long list. Two stories told well are more memorable than five stories crammed together.
I drew the lines explicitly. The Wendy's story connects to how I lead in labs. The Dr. Herzog story connects to how I mentor my own students. The reader doesn't have to do the connecting work for me.
I was specific. "Put gloves on with a smile on my face, turned on some peppy music, and washed dishes in the back for an hour" is more memorable than "I helped out where I could." Every concrete sensory detail buys you a little more space in the reader's memory.
What I'd Do Differently Now
Some of the phrasing here is too loose. "Vibrantly positive attitude" is exactly the kind of thing I'd cut now. "Enthusiastic example accompanied by my genuine love for learning and discovery" is a mouthful. If I were rewriting today I'd trim about 10% of the words and let the remaining ones do more work.
I'd also be more explicit about how my leadership approach specifically advances diversity in science. The essay does this implicitly (I lead by example, I mentor underrepresented students, I model Dr. Herzog's approach with my own mentees), but I could have made the connection more direct.
Working on your own Gilliam Scientific Leadership statement and want feedback? I offer one-on-one fellowship coaching. Also see my complete guide to the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship for context on the full application.
