Interdisciplinary research is a major emphasis of modern biomedical and physical science efforts, and enabling interdisciplinary research is a major part of the NIH Roadmap. Biomedically-oriented, environmental interdisciplinary research is the theme of this Center/Program, and as such, requires a cross-cutting training program in support of the Superfund Center's educational activities. The role of the Training Core is to provide an Infrastructure and environment that promotes the development of post-doctoral and graduate students in the highly interdisciplinary field of surfaces of particulate matter. Importantly, the Training Core has Aims that focus on recruiting and multidisciplinary education of graduate and postdoctoral students. Proposal Objectives that will allow us to achieve the Aims include: offer a support staff that handles dally operations of the Training Core;foster interactions between faculty and participants;manage the Training Core via faculty leadership and involvement in the Core aims and objectives;establish an aggressive recruiting program for prospective post-doctoral fellows and graduate students through our on-going research programs, and faculty/student seminars at feeder schools, which include a group of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs);recruit new graduate students from our existing PhD programs that are successful with recruiting and retention of scientists from all groups;increase postdoctoral and graduate student team-playing, self-motivation/reliance and breadth of research knowledge/skills by use of Superfund Teams;provide a set of core graduate courses for students;and augment the cross-interdisciplinary training through the use of a research rotation program. The Training Core of this Superfund Proposal will result in the training of students pursuing a doctor of philosophy degree or those furthering their post-graduate education in the highly interdisciplinary area of particle-associated air pollution and subsequent health effects of said pollution as studied by biomedical researchers. Students from diverse ethnic, gender, and scientific back grounds will be cross-trained so that they will become valuable contributors to the environmental workforce.
The proposed training core builds upon the research activities of LSU and the LSU Health Sciences Center (LSU-HSC) and creates new educational opportunities for graduate and postdoctoral students and researchers. Students will gain a holistic, interdisciplinary perspective from which to analyze Superfund-related environmental issues.
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