Research fellows are involved in developing new projects and assisting with ongoing projects. The clinical research fellowship includes close mentorship from Otolaryngology faculty engaged in clinical research.

Fellowship highlights:

• Broad portfolio with robust clinical research opportunities in all otolaryngology subspecialties.
• Research opportunities in novel and emerging "hot topics" in medicine while working with clinical and research faculty with active grant support, for example:
  • Advancing health care delivery innovation including digital care delivery, mobile health, and wearable technologies
  • Leveraging AI and machine learning to inform diagnosis and treatment, predict outcomes, and enable precision medicine
  • Understanding the impact of social determinants of health on outcomes and quality of life
  • Community-based participatory research with hard-to-reach populations
  • Enhancing medical education and surgical training
• Leadership and professional development in healthcare
  • Opportunity to work directly with a clinical department chair, vice chair for research and innovation, faculty with active research laboratory groups, and other university and hospital leaders
  • Dissemination and implementation (D&I) science to accelerate advancement in medicine
  • Focused scholarship, which can lead to multiple publications from the fellowship year

2026-2027 Clinical Research Fellowship Qualifications and Eligibility

• U.S. citizenship is required to hold this position
• M.D. degree (or anticipated) from a U.S. accredited institution, or 3rd year medical student admitted to a U.S. accredited institution who is planning a research year
• Excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, flexibility, ability to activate and complete projects, strong verbal and written communication
• Proficient knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams, including physicians and administrative staff with varying levels of education and knowledge of health care practices
• High quality professionalism, empathy, and respectfulness necessary for working with patients and caregivers

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with electronic medical records
• Data management experience with Microsoft Excel, REDCap, or other electronic data capture systems
• Experience with statistical analysis software
• Qualitative research experience

Responsibilities

Clinical Research Fellows work closely with research faculty, research coordinators, and residents to execute clinical research projects; recruit and enroll patients and caregivers in clinical research registries and trials; develop and maintain project-specific databases; lead data collection efforts with responsibilities including creating data collection tools, developing data collection workflow plans, and entering data; assist residents, surgical fellows, and faculty with data analysis and manuscript development; actively participate in weekly research meetings to develop solutions for problems with existing research methodology and brainstorm ideas for new projects; and provide weekly progress and status updates research leads.

Allocation of Fellow Time:

~40% - Patient enrollment, data collection, and database management
~30% - Data analysis and manuscript development
~20% - Meetings with clinical research leaders and department faculty, residents, and surgical fellows to discuss new and ongoing projects
~10% - Planning for and initiating new clinical research projects including IRB application development and management

Interested applicants should email a current CV, cover letter, and two letters of reference to Ms. Sarah Wallace at swallace8@kumc.edu. ERAS letters of reference are acceptable.

Application Deadline: 2:00 p.m. CST on March 20, 2026

Per NRMP regulations and policies, we are unable to review application materials prior to the conclusion of SOAP at 9:00 PM ET on March 19, 2026. Applicants who are participating in SOAP should not submit applications prior to this time as it represents a MATCH violation for the applicant, and we are unable to meet with those SOAP-participating applicants for interviews/to discuss specifics of the fellowship before 9:00 PM ET on March 19, 2026.

Contact

Sarah Wallace
KUMC Otolaryngology-HNS Administrative Assistant (Research)
swallace8@kumc.edu

Core Faculty

Frank T. Materia, Ph.D., MHS
Assistant Professor, Departments of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery and Population Health
Associate Scientific Director, Digital Health Co/Lab at the University of Kansas

Andrés Bur, M.D., FACS
Vice Chair, Technology, AI, and Innovation
Associate Professor, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery
Research Project Leaders, Kansas Institute of Precision Medicine COBRE

Omar Karadaghy, M.D., MSCI
Assistant Professor, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery

Sufi Thomas, Ph.D.
Professor
Cell Biology and Physiology