Career Enhancement Core

ABSTRACT: CAREER ENHANCEMENT CORE The Career Enhancement Core will focus on recruiting, training, and mentoring the careers of trainees, including pre- and post-doctoral fellows and new and early-stage investigators, as independent investigators focused on tobacco regulatory science (TRS). Consistent with the UNC TCORS theme, we will focus on skill acquisition key to building the science for effective public health decision-making about flavored tobacco products. The Core will facilitate comprehensive mentored research and training experiences annually for 4-8 pre-doctoral fellows, 4 post-doctoral fellows (one for each research project), and 2 new and early-stage investigators. Experiences will include participating in research projects, grant writing, monthly trainings, meetings, seminars and conferences. The Core will also fund 3-5 pilot research projects annually and facilitate experiential and networking opportunities between our TCORS projects and investigators at other TCORS. Throughout the Core, we will incorporate and evaluate strategies to recruit and mentor trainees; implement best practices for cultivating research environments; and host Center-wide discussions of emerging issues in TRS. Core Co-Leads Drs. Goldstein and Golden have a combined 55 years of successfully mentoring students and early career researchers. In the past ten years, Core leads and UNC TCORS faculty provided mentorship and trained 36 pre-doctoral students, 14 post-doctoral students, and 12 new and early stage investigators who collectively first-authored over 150 publications in high impact journals and successfully transitioned to independent faculty or assumed federal and other research positions.