Events

Laboratory and Project Management (Chen). This class will provide an overview of the training program and introduce best practices for maintaining lab records, writing and sharing laboratory protocols, planning experiments, tracking project progress, and reviewing experimental design.
Grant writing and research development (Ugurbil). Through instruction, peer review, mock review panels (made up of program faculty with reviewing experience), and guidance from mentors, we aim for each fellow to submit a strong NIH K99/R00 or other types of early stage grants offered by NIH, NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, or similar young investigator grant in the second year of their fellowship. Instruction will cover topics such as identifying study sections, communicating with Program Officers, writing clear prose, and preparing non-scientific portions of a research grant. Dr. Michael Lotti of UMN’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) will design and implement this training course, partly modeled on similar sessions he has led for junior faculty in CSE and partly on the Medical School’s Proposal Preparation Program for junior faculty. Dr. Lotti has helped UMN faculty and research teams write dozens of successful grants for NIH, NSF, DARPA, and other funding sources and currently leads IEM’s efforts to help medical and engineering teams prepare for and write center-level grants.
Rigor and reproducibility (Netoff). Through historical examples and published material, we will stress the need for transparent and unbiased research that is rigorous and reproducible. In particular, we will emphasize: 1) Designing random and blinded studies, 2) Determining sample size, 3) Data management standards, and 4) Common pitfalls such as ad hoc exclusion of data, retrospective primary end-point selection, and pseudo replicates. In addition to materials developed at UMN for such instruction, we will make use of the many NIH Rigor and Reproducibility Training modules available through UMN’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, which is UMN’s CTSA program. These include the dozens of modules, courses, and seminars created in part through funding from NIGMS’s 2014 FOA (reissued in 2018) “Training Modules to Enhance the Rigor and Reproducibility of Biomedical Research.”
Responsible conduct of research (Johnson). In accordance with UMN policy, all first-year fellows will complete an online training through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative before starting research in this program. This course consists of 6 required modules that cover the definition of research misconduct, identify fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, financial management, factors contributing to research misconduct, strategies that can be used to prevent or mitigate misconduct, and how to manage misconduct allegations. Other modules and courses will be assigned to each fellow by their mentorship team as needed – for example, fellows who will be working with patient data will also take “Good Clinical Practice and Human Research Protections for Biomedical Study Teams”. Links to misconduct reporting will be provided on the fellowship website for easy access. We will also host speakers from UMN’s Center for Bioethics, UMN’s law school, and other UMN and non-UMN entities to give lectures and guide seminars on biomedical ethics, animal research ethics, clinical trial ethics, and other relevant topics relevant to neuroimaging research.
Data science (Chen, Kay, Netoff). We strongly believe that data science is an essential tool for all neuroimaging research. Thus, we will provide several seminars on subjects covering databases and large-scale data management (Netoff), signal processing and nonlinear image processing (Chen), and machine learning for identifying features in large dimensional data (Kay). Other data science topics for Professional Development seminars will be determined by the fellows to match their needs. Fellows needing specialized data science training will be assigned a course by their mentors.
Diversity and inclusion (UMN Diversity Office Faculty). A major goal of the proposed training program is for fellows to be able to work within and lead diverse groups to achieve exceptional research results. We will require every fellow to take UMN’s course on Addressing Implicit Bias and Microaggressions provided by the UMN Office for Equity and Diversity in the first year of their fellowship, and at least one Professional Development speaker per year will address a topic related to diversity and inclusion, especially as they pertain to STEM fields.

We will also require each fellow to participate in at least one outreach program to an underrepresented population within STEM fields. UMN hosts many such programs, including Inspire, which is led by UMN’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine. The goal of the Inspire program is to inspire middle school, high school, and community college students from diverse communities to participate in STEM careers related to healthcare, biomedical science, and engineering. Venues include: 1) an annual on-campus conference where faculty, postdocs, and industry speakers present TED-style talks on topics such as cancer and neuroscience, 2) on-site presentations, instruction, and mentorship in partner middle schools and high schools where over 50% of the student body is underrepresented in STEM fields, and 3) mentoring high school juniors and seniors from underrepresented populations for research projects (modeled after UMN’s CURE program (cancer.umn.edu/education-training/internships-cancer-research) and Georgia Tech’s Project Engages (projectengages.gatech.edu)).

Additional professional development topics:

Preparing poster and conference presentations (Akkin)
Writing and presenting for a general audience (Lotti)
Preparing for faculty interviews (Hayden)
Intellectual property and patenting (Netoff)
Commercialization and small business startup (Netoff)