J. NRSA Training Core

The purpose of the University of Pittsburgh TL1 Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) Fellowship Program is to provide rigorous individualized training that encompasses core competencies in translational research methodologies and interdisciplinary professional skills. We will support the career goals of fellows through an intensive program of mentoring, scholarly activities, and career coaching. Over the past fifteen years, we have built an extensive infrastructure of career development and degree programs tailored to educate and train investigators at every stage of the career pipeline and across the spectrum of translational science. Our commitment to mentoring as an integral part of career training has resulted in well-established mentoring programs and an expansive pool of experienced senior investigators willing to serve as mentors to trainees and students. We also provide trainees access to extensive statistical, ethics, data management, design, analytic and editorial resources to further support their pilot research projects and grant proposals. For the CTS Fellowship, we will draw fellows and faculty mentors from the six Schools of the Health Sciences, as well other schools such as Engineering, Social Work, and Computing and Information. We will utilize the more than 80 institutes and centers at the University that serve as hubs for multidisciplinary research. The immediate objectives of this TL1 CTS Fellowship are to: recruit outstanding fellows; train fellows in rigorous research methods; build skills in team science, leadership, stakeholder engagement, and entrepreneurship; guide fellows in asking important translational research questions and implementing research projects; ensure close monitoring of fellows to guide their research career development; and offer growth-mindset resilience training and assist them in building work-life integration. Through rigorous methodological training and productive research, we aim to shorten the time to independence for fellows by providing them with the foundation for successful career development awards. Our long-term objectives are to ensure that fellows complete their translational research studies on schedule, disseminate their research widely, and are positioned for sustained translational research careers with impact. Our goal is to recruit a pool of fellows from a variety of training backgrounds, support them throughout their career, and evaluate and track their success over time.