I’m still having a hard time believing that someone “scouted” Richard Axel in 1960 and threw his name in a file with a note saying that he should be funded—-but only a quarter-century later.
I can imagine that they congratulate winners and perhaps invite them to apply for one of HHMI’s early career programs, but I would be amazed and disappointed if people were “locking down” investigator status at 16. Success that early depends a lot on having access to the right opportunity and environment.
When I was 20, I participated in a (funded) fairly prestigious summer workshop. This lead to a grant for a year of independent research from the same funders, after which I went to grad school. As a postdoc, the same sponsors funded one project of mine, then another, and a third is under review right now. However, there's no formal "pipeline" here, no midnight meeting in a spooky room where I was promised funding way down the line, long after I finally grew a beard and had it turn grey. Instead, this has continued for as long as it has because our interests have remained aligned and my collaborators and I have done pretty good work. If we have a few down years, the funding will probably dry up and someone, possibly even someone totally new to this ecosystem, will get it instead.
That said, there is an obvious Matthew Effect: once you get one award, you can list it on the next application. Now you have two awards, which is more impressive, and you list them both on your third application, and so on. There are other, less tangible benefits of being visible, getting face time with program managers, and so on. My impression of the HHMI Investigator program was that it was much more like this--early awards open doors and may make it more likely that someone eventually becomes an Investigator, but there's not a formal pipeline that reaches back to high school.
You seem to be suggesting that HHMI identifies high school science contest winners with the express intent of funding them later as independent investigators. This is what I'm skeptical about. I can certainly believe HHMI can identify smart people and that (some) smart people continue to be smart throughout their career.
I’m still having a hard time believing that someone “scouted” Richard Axel in 1960 and threw his name in a file with a note saying that he should be funded—-but only a quarter-century later.
I can imagine that they congratulate winners and perhaps invite them to apply for one of HHMI’s early career programs, but I would be amazed and disappointed if people were “locking down” investigator status at 16. Success that early depends a lot on having access to the right opportunity and environment.