CAS Future Leaders Application

“I grew up in a country of extremes - wedged between North and South, the Atlantic and Pacific, with everything from glistening beaches to dormant volcanoes and rainforest.”

This was the opening sentence of my essay to apply for the CAS 2024 Future Leaders program. In a way it felt over the top, but in other ways it felt right, and it seems it was. Writing my essay was a long process, as I wanted it to be right for such a competitive program, even though I knew I could still apply another year. As 2025 CAS Future Leaders applications are open now, I thought it was a good time to summarise what I learned from my application process, talking with other 2024 future leaders and the amazing program organizers about how to apply and complete the two essential parts of the application, the essay and letter of recommendation.

First lets talk about the Essay:

My first step in applying for the CAS future leaders program was gathering all the information I could find about it. From this I managed to find some very important insight, which really made the difference in working out where to start with the essay. First of all, I found Oliva Harper’s Blog, 2022 CAS Future Leader, with recommendations on how to write the essay and her essay, which was super helpful. I also had a look at the paper written by the 2019 CAS Future leaders (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32822566/) and a Youtube Video by 2016 CAS Future leader Marc Reid.

A year on it is hard to separate out exactly what advice I followed from each source, but hopefully they will help some of you get inspired to start writing your own essay. As always, some of the best advice I can give you is be yourself, show what makes you unique, your passion for research and working in science.

My essay had 9 paragraphs, 2 figures and 5 references. I started by explaining where my love for science (and particularly materials) originates. The next two paragraphs outlined my current research interests. The longest paragraph describes my research career journey. From research projects during my Masters, to my PhD with a graphical summary (Figure 1).

I used the next paragraph to explain how (and why) I transitioned from to my current research and my motivation to pursue a research career path. This linked in with how and why CAS SciFinder is so essential for my interdisciplinary research. It is worth thinking about and mentioning how the SciFinder adds to your research, as this enhances your essay and overall application.

This led on to how I am currently developing my individual research ideas, writing individual fellowship applications and helping inspire the next generation of researchers. I then went into a bit more detail on my career aspirations over the next two paragraphs - how they have changed since I moved to Brazil (almost 15 years ago now!), relevant extracurricular activities like outreach, mentoring, and inspiring future generations, including through OWSD Honduras.

My closing paragraph summarised how I felt the CAS future leaders would add to my career prospects and achieving my aspirations in future. It mentioned meeting outstanding international chemists, becoming an inspiring female role model and more. Reading that closing paragraph back now, I recognize just how much I managed to gain from this amazing program and how much I am sure I will gain in the coming years by putting the lessons and experiences into practice. The program was even better than I imagined while writing the essay. You can read more about it in my previous blog post, CAS Future Leaders Experience.

Now what about the letter of recommendation? Firstly, as with any reference find a more senior academic that knows you well, is supportive of your research career and (wherever possible) internationally recognised. For this program, I asked my postdoc supervisor, Prof Frederik Wurm, with whom had been working for a year, to write it. Some advice I was given, was not to ask someone to write your recommendation just because they are a Nobel Prize winner as, unless they genuinely know you, your work and career aspirations well enough, they will not be able to talk about your research and leadership skills which are what really make you stand out in this process. While I never saw the recommendation letter for this program from other letters key points to mention include your research area, markers of esteem - like previous prizes, having acquired research funding either independently or as a co-applicant, extracurricular activities and career goals.

Ideally, you want the essay and recommendation letter to complement each other - to get across who you are, why you are so passionate about science (what makes YOU stand out), and also that you have the raw potential that with the training on the program you can put the lessons in to practice and make the most of them - more than anything that is what the reviewers will be looking for.

Applications for the 2025 CAS future leaders program are open until the January 26th, 2025. I wholeheartedly recommend applying as the program is a once in a lifetime opportunity, both for the training they provide and the connections you will make with other members of your cohort which last way beyond the two weeks spent on the program!