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The University of Michigan takes pride in its professional development programs for STEM graduate students. Three Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs of special note are:

At the campus level, the Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) provide doctoral candidates with a five-week PFF seminar each May. Its topics include: preparation for the academic job search, information about higher education (institutional types and faculty work life), and discussion of effective and reflective teaching that is mulitculturally sensitive. Over 170 graduate students have completed this program, over 70 of them from STEM disciplines. Rackham and CRLT also offer a one-day university-wide PFF conference for graduate students each fall which serves over 150 graduate students, with half of these from STEM disciplines.

At the college level, the Academic Careers in Engineering and the Sciences (ACES) Program was created to provide engineering graduate students with the necessary skills to be successful as engineering/science faculty. The ACES program prepares graduate students to manage a research program, secure external funding, mentor graduate students, search for an academic position, serve on departmental and college-wide committees, and develop new courses and curricula.

At the department level, the department of Chemistry has constructed a program called CSIE: Chemical Sciences at the Interface of Education. Since 1998, combining ideas derived from the scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as PFF, the department has broadened its infrastructure of scholarly development to offer all students (undergraduate to post-doctoral) interested in academic careers the opportunity to collaborate on teaching projects with faculty much the same way that they pursue research projects. The centerpiece of the program is built on the familiar structure of a graduate training grant: fellowships, coursework, seminars, brown-bag sessions, and an informal research group structure that provides a second context for the 15-20% of PhD students who wish to add this work to their theses.