When Matt Allen, Ph.D., served as a mentor for the LHSI program, he immediately saw the value of the program and how the student participants gain an appreciation for research.
“LHSI gives students space to explore careers in an immersive experience,” Dr. Allen said. “It really gives students a chance to try a career and understand what it’s about.”
Dr. Allen is part of the executive strategy team for the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI). CTSI is a statewide partnership among Indiana University, Purdue University, and University of Notre Dame with an overall goal of improving health in Indiana through research. For the past year, working alongside Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, M.D., Dr. Allen has served as co-director of workforce development, where one of the goals is developing the next generation of translational researchers. This work spans K–12 populations through faculty and staff.
One of the strengths and priorities of CTSI is making connections and leveraging excellence between campus programs. When Drs. Tucker Edmonds and Allen learned that LHSI had more student applicants each year than they could accept, it was a chance to increase engagement with translational research careers and posed a unique opportunity to support ongoing efforts to advance the CTSI's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
One of the emerging priority areas of the CTSI is to increase opportunities for students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, and CTSI will support six such undergraduate students during the 2021–22 academic year. “This was a great opportunity for us to come together and give additional students the chance to learn all about translational research through the immersive internship,” Dr. Allen said.
LHSI offers a variety of opportunities for students, including clinical research, community-based research, and health communications, and the CTSI leadership saw the program as a priority to support undergraduate students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds.
“We want to engage the next generation and show them that translational research can be an exciting and impactful career.”