Abstract:

The Old Westbury Neuroscience International Research Program (OWNIP) is designed to encourage undergraduate students from health disparities populations and underrepresented minorities to pursue careers in basic science, biomedical, clinical and behavioral health research fields. The program attains this goal by exposing participating students to a ten-week summer research program abroad in one of four different foreign sites. The activities include research mentoring both at home and abroad, career counseling, and opportunities to present their work at scientific conferences among others. Our program has a unifying research focus on the study of neurobiology using mostly invertebrate models to study molecular, cellular, organismic, and behavioral processes that are evolutionarily conserved. Since its inception in 1994 a total of one hundred and six students have participated in the program of which 47 (71%) has either pursued a PhD, MS, MD or is working in the biomedical research field. All of the participants have graduated with Bachelor's of Science degrees in Biology, Chemistry or Biochemistry. Of these, thirty one have pursued or are currently pursuing a graduate degree (M.D., M.S., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.B.S.), nineteen are currently working in a science-based field, i.e., Research, Medical, etc., five are currently working in a field not related to the Sciences, and thirty three have a status of unknown in terms of work/education. The best product of the OWNIP is the productiveness of our ongoing collaborations with the foreign mentors, i.e. thirty two peer reviewed publications with OWNIP alums as authors, and the integration of the program into the overall research plan. We believe this integrated international team effort is reflected in the productivity of our laboratories, the high percentage of students from underrepresented populations pursuing careers in the biomedical field and the number of publications with student authors. This program is funded through a Minority Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) grant#T37MD001429.

Keywords:

research training, underrepresented, minorities, neuroscience.