The Co-Directors of INSPIRE are Dr. Martha Soto, PI of the INSPIRE grant and Professor of the Department of Pathology and Dr. Gary A. Brewer, co-PI of INSPIRE and Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Soto was Director of the Postdoctoral Career Development Program of RWJMS from 2010 to 2017, when in 2017 she helped Rutgers launch the campus-wide Rutgers Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. Dr. Soto is also the Founder and Faculty Advisor for the BIO Links (Biosciences Links to Teaching) K-12 Outreach Program. In Bio Links, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at RWJMS and Rutgers partner with local middle school and high school science teachers, serving diverse student populations.
Dr. Jianping (Gabby) Xu is the Assistant Director for Postdoc Support at INSPIRE, on 50%. She has extensive experience in career development, and was recognized as a 2015 Exemplary Diversity Scholar by National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) at University of Michigan.
The program coordinators at our 3 MSI partner schools are:
Dr. Emily Monroe, Assistant Professor at William Paterson University;
Dr. Cindy Arrigo, Associate Professor at New Jersey City University;
Dr. Edward J. Catapane, Professor at Medgar Evers College-CUNY.
Faculty and program coordinators from these schools play an integral role in the educational training and professional development of our INSPIRE Fellows.
Mr. Dawayne Whittington of Strategic Evaluations, Inc. (SEI), who leads INSPIRE program evaluation, is also part of the INSPIRE leadership team.
Our Fellows' Research Mentors are faculty members across 3 Rutgers campuses (New Brunswick, Piscataway and Newark) whose lab research is in the biomedical fields (broadly defined, basic research only, non-clinical).
