This proposal is a revised competitive renewal for a training grant that will continue to support trainees in the Rehabilitation Sciences Research Training Program at the University of Washington. Two postdoctoral fellows and four predoctoral fellows will be in training annually. The Rehabilitation Sciences Research Training Program is a multidisciplinary program designed to increase the availability of trained scientists who will perform research in the newly-emerging field of Rehabilitation Sciences. Program faculty is drawn from successful researchers in Rehabilitation Medicine, Speech and Hearing Sciences, and Physiology and Biophysics. The training program has three elements: (1) the critical relationship between a trainee specifically selected for the program and a successful rehabilitation researcher/faculty member;(2) a research training seminar that is specifically designed to (a) teach and enhance the critical skills necessary for a successful research career and (b) teach and enhance knowledge about the critical content areas of Rehabilitation Sciences and (3) participation in additional research training opportunities available at the University of Washington. Predoctoral candidates will be recruited from one of two doctoral degree programs: Rehabilitation Sciences and Speech and Hearing Sciences. Postdoctoral trainees will be recruited nationally. All trainees would conduct research under the guidance of one of the program's training faculty. The trainee's progress in each of the three components of the training program (trainee/advisor relationship, program research seminars, additional training opportunities) will be evaluated four times a year by the trainees and their advisors and reviewed on an ongoing basis by the program co- directors, quarterly by the internal advisory committee, and annually by the external advisory committee. The information from these evaluations will be used to ensure that: (1) trainees are successfully moving towards the goal of becoming competent independent researchers, and (2) the program itself remains relevant for meeting the primary program goal, that is, to increase the number of effective and successful rehabilitation researchers. The proposed training project will provide the multidisciplinary environment that is fundamental to the Rehabilitation Sciences and will significantly increase the pool of competitive researchers in Rehabilitation Science.
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