About Crystal
Dr. Crystal Botham is the founder and inaugural director of both the Stanford Biosciences Grant Writing Academy and the Office of Pediatric Research Development. Crystal is exceptionally proud that Stanford University is leading the nation in numbers of awarded NIH K99/R00s.
The Grant Writing Academy (founded in 2014) aims to center joy and belonging in grant writing and beyond. A core program is an intensive 8-week Proposal Bootcamp, which was honored with an Innovations in Research Education Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The Bootcamp supports grant writers (graduate students, postdocs, faculty, etc.) through weekly meetings with trained Grant Coaches to impart grant writing skills and conduct peer review. Bootcamp participants had nearly double the success as non-Bootcamp trainees in winning research funding. The Bootcamp Proposal curricula and 6-years of outcome data was published in PLoS One in 2020.
The Office of Pediatric Research Development (founded in 2019) assists grant writers in the Department of Pediatrics in securing extramural funding for cutting-edge research. The Office guides grant writers to submit fundable proposals for all types of funding opportunities, including fellowships, career development awards, individual research grants, and large center or training grants.
Crystal’s childhood was spent living along the Pacific Ocean in Half Moon Bay, California. She now resides in Palo Alto, California with her husband, four children, a guinea pig, and a flock of quail.