? RESEARCH EDUCATION COMPONENT (REC) The goal of the Research Education Component (REC) of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) is to support educational activities that complement and enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation's biomedical, behavioral, and clinical needs in Alzheimer's Disease (AD)-related research. The Wisconsin ADRC REC will achieve this goal by providing a program of training to all ADRC-affiliated trainees in addition to identifying exceptional junior investigators who will be specifically supported in their development into independent Alzheimer's researchers (ADRC REC Scholars). The REC will provide trainees with individualized career coaching and mentorship to support their growth and training to achieve proficiency in core research competencies and eight Wisconsin ADRC content areas (Basic Science & Neuropathology, Neuroimaging, Community Based Outreach, Clinical and Biomarker Research, Neuropsychology, Data Analytics, Care Research, and Omics). Training will occur through seminars, degree and certificate programs, workshops, and mentored research experiences. To develop the next generation of research leaders, we must attract trainees and junior faculty to this field. Accordingly, we will work with training programs across the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison campus to infuse AD-related research concepts into predoctoral, postdoctoral, and junior faculty training programs. By exposing early stage investigators to these topics, we will increase the interest in and understanding of aging research and enlarge an already robust pipeline of future researchers. The REC will evaluate the effectiveness of the research training program through a collaboration with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, a national leader in education evaluation. We will use mixed methods approaches to assess the quality and value of the REC. Collaboration with education experts will allow us to educate trainees using innovative best practices. We will achieve these goals by leveraging the vast resources available at UW, one of the academically most productive institutions in the country.
