Welcome to the Training Institute
INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH TRAINING INSTITUTE
The NHSN welcomes you to this site. Dr. Avelardo Valdez, Professor and Director of the University of Southern California School of Social Work is the Chair of the Sub-committee overseeing the Interdisciplinary Research Training Institute (IRTI).
While drug abuse in the U.S. continues to have a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities, particularly Hispanics, the number of researchers studying the problem remains relatively small. Moreover, few training and research centers exist that focus on current drug abuse issues among Hispanic populations. The need to prepare the next generation of drug researchers in this field is acute. Specifically, there is a need to train researchers to develop a broad-based set of scientific knowledge and research skills that will equip them for the conduct of interdisciplinary drug abuse research .
The IRTI promotes the career development of pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and early career scientists interested in conducting research on drug abuse among Hispanics. The IRTI is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and provides three core activities to research fellows including: Training, Mentoring and Networking. The aim is to ensure a constant support infrastructure for fellows to conduct, present, publish and acquire funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research. The IRTI conducts an intensive interdisciplinary summer training program along with a formal mentorship process. To foster a formal mentoring relationship between the fellow and a senior faculty mentor, the IRTI provides a variety of organized mentorship activities during a period of two years. These include mentor commitment and support for travel to: 1) mentor institution; 2) professional conferences/workshops; and 3) IRTI Mentoring Annual Meetings
The 2012 Summer Training Program will be held from June 19-29. For more information on the IRTI, please email Alice Cepeda at alicecep@usc.edu.