The University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and San Diego State University (SDSU) propose an institutional research and academic career development award (IRACDA) program for postdoctoral research fellows. The purpose of the UCSD/SDSU IRACDA will be to recruit and train top under-represented postdoctoral fellows in the best research labs and to couple this mentored training with evaluated training in teaching. The immediate goal is to place IRACDA Fellows in tenure track jobs within the UC and California State University systems. The long-term goal is to increase the number of under-represented faculty in biomedical sciences nation-wide. The program combines the facilities and selected biomedical research faculty of a large and well-known research university, the pool of candidates from the UC system (largest producer of minority Ph.D. graduates in the US), and the facilities and research professors from a large minority-serving institution with specialists in science education. In this three year training program, research training will occur at both institutions but primarily at UCSD, and will include weekly lab meetings, weekly meeting of the research division or department (postdocs present at least once a year), student journal club with evaluated presentations, a course in research ethics, courses in grant and paper writing and annual attendance at a national meeting (poster presentations in years 2 and 3). Fellows will deliver one lecture per semester in a beginning biology course throughout the training period, with training in classroom management, advising, assessment and Lecture skills and substantial development and analysis of individual teaching styles by one-on-one and group evaluations with a specialist in science education. The expectation is substantial esprit de corps amongst Fellows, a first publication by end of year two, a research grant in draft form by the second half of year three, a portfolio of six exemplary lectures by the end of year three and a job offer at the end of year three. Fellows will be followed for ten years from the start of the program (roughly to the time of a tenure decision) and their progress compared to that of the general pool of postdoctoral fellows on the two campuses.
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