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$3.7 Million Award from National Institutes of Health Will Support
New Postdoctoral Program to Train Researchers to Become Scientist-Educators
New Brunswick, NJ -- UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has received $3.7 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support a new program that provides research training to postdoctoral fellows and prepares them to become faculty whose careers will combine excellence in education and research. The medical school is one of only 18 universities in the United States to receive an Institutional Research and Career Development Award (IRACDA) from the NIH to support the new program, called INSPIRE (IRACDA New Jersey/New York for Science Partnerships in Research & Education), which will provide advanced training opportunities for researchers who also plan to be undergraduate science educators.
“The INSPIRE program is designed to train the next generation of science faculty to become successful researchers and educators, while increasing participation of underrepresented groups in biomedical research,” said Michael J. Leibowitz, MD, PhD, professor of molecular genetics, microbiology and immunology, principal investigator for the INSPIRE program and director of Graduate Academic Diversity at the medical school. “The five-year grant will benefit not only INSPIRE fellows and the college students whom they will instruct and mentor, but also other postdoctoral fellows and graduate students in the biomedical sciences at the medical school and Rutgers University, who will be able to participate in the career development and educational programs created for the INSPIRE program.”
INSPIRE is a partnership between Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and three local minority-serving institutions which predominantly train undergraduate students: New Jersey City University, Medgar Evers College-City University of New York (CUNY), and Long Island University-Brooklyn Campus, each of which will play an integral role in the educational training of INSPIRE Fellows, who will teach and develop new science courses at these schools.
Dr. Leibowitz brings decades of experience administering graduate programs and programs that increase diversity in the biomedical sciences. He currently serves as program director of the NIH-funded Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity and Bridge to the Doctorate Awards and has assembled a talented team of scientist-educators at the medical school and the three partner schools to implement and administer the program. These include co-director Martha Soto, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, who directs the Postdoctoral Career Development Program at the medical school. Dr. Soto is the founder and faculty advisor for the Biosciences Links to Teaching (BIO Links) K-12 Outreach Program, which partners graduate students from UMDNJ-Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers, as well as postdoctoral fellows from the medical school, with local middle school and high school science teachers.
The faculty coordinators at the partner institutions are: Dr. Cindy Arrigo, assistant professor of biology at New Jersey City University; Dr. Edward J. Catapane, professor of biology at Medgar Evers College-CUNY; and Dr. Anthony L. DePass, associate professor and assistant vice president for research development at Long Island University.
The nationwide IRACDA program aims to facilitate the progress of postdoctoral scholars of all ethnicities toward research and teaching careers in academia; to motivate the next generation of scientists from historically underrepresented populations to pursue careers in biomedical sciences; and to promote linkages between research-intensive institutions and minority-serving institutions that will lead to further collaborations in research and teaching. The IRACDA Program was created by the Minority Opportunities in Research division of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences at the NIH.
Graduate students and early stage postdoctoral fellows who are United States citizens or permanent residents and interested in the INSPIRE program may obtain more information by visiting: http://rwjms.umdnj.edu/research/postdoc/inspire/index.html or e-mailing: inspire@umdnj.edu.
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About UMDNJ-ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON MEDICAL SCHOOL
As one of the nation’s leading comprehensive medical schools, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school’s principal affiliate, they comprise New Jersey’s premier academic medical center. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.
As one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with 2,800 full-time and volunteer faculty, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 22 basic science and clinical departments, hosts centers and institutes including The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Camden, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs. To learn more about UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, log on to rwjms.umdnj.edu. Find our fan page at http://www.Facebook.com/RWJMS and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UMDNJ_RWJMS.
