Our objective is to increase the numbers of academic researchers from under-represented minorities (URM) in the medical and allied health professions and to train them to utilize innovative methods that enhance the learning environment and support the career development of URM pre-professional and allied health professions students.
Our Goals
Through funding provided by a K12 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) program and a partnership with Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), the PRIME scholars will be trained by integrating traditional mentored postdoctoral research at Wake Forest School of Medicine, regular in-depth professional development programming at WFSM, WFU and WSSU, and a broad variety of teaching assignments in pre-professional and allied health professional (with a focus on Physical Therapy) courses at WSSU.
PRIME will aid in recruitment, retention, and development of more under-represented minority clinical scientists by immersing PRIME scholars, their WFU mentors, and undergraduates in the MARC U*STAR and MBRS RISE programs at WSSU in a rich collaborative learning environment. Additionally, PRIME will strengthen existing collaborations in research and teaching between WFSM and WSSU.
Aims of the Program
- Train scholars in research with a faculty member in a WFU Graduate School of Arts and Science’s program in Integrative Physiology and Pharmacology, Neuroscience, or Molecular Medicine and Translational Sciences.
- Train scholars in mentored teaching experiences at WSSU for the entire three-year training, including tutoring, lecturing, laboratory design and development, guiding students through robotics simulations, leading case-based learning (PBL), and open-source digital teaching tools.
- Introduce PRIME scholars to current pedagogical techniques and educational philosophy through a semester-long course, and short workshops from the WFU Teaching and Learning Center and others.
- Facilitate mentoring skills by pairing PRIME scholars with WFSM faculty to oversee the research training of WSSU MARC U*STAR and MBRS-RISE undergraduates, and PREP post-bac students.
- Train PRIME scholars in translational research practices and grant writing.
- Train PRIME scholars to become leaders in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education programs.
