Mentoring of Early Career Researchers from Diverse Backgrounds

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PROJECT SUMMARY There is a critical need to train the next generation of scientists and promote diversity in this workforce to improve care for children with kidney disease. Effective mentoring at early career stages is fundamental to successful career advancement in biomedical research. The candidate for this NIDDK Investigator Award to Support Mentoring of Early Career Researchers from Diverse Backgrounds is Michelle Denburg, MD, MSCE. Dr. Denburg is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) and is a practicing pediatric nephrologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). PSOM and CHOP offer an ideal setting for collaboration, mentorship, didactic training, and opportunities in patient-oriented research, and Dr. Denburg’s leadership roles and responsibilities are highly synergistic with the goals of this award. Dr. Denburg’s multidisciplinary research program is focused on managing complications of and improving health outcomes in childhood kidney diseases, including chronic kidney disease (CKD), glomerular disease, and kidney stone disease, with a particular interest in bone health and altered mineral and vitamin D metabolism. Her research includes analyses of large electronic health record databases, ancillary studies to existing NIDDK-funded prospective cohort studies, and observational, translational, and interventional patient-oriented studies. Dr. Denburg has a long-standing and demonstrated commitment to research and career mentoring. Over the past 12 years, Dr. Denburg has mentored over 35 individuals from diverse backgrounds across multiple disciplines, institutions, and career stages. The majority of these individuals have continued their careers in academic medicine and remain engaged in research. With this award, Dr. Denburg aims to continue to provide effective mentoring in the conduct of rigorous patient-oriented pediatric research to early career researchers from diverse backgrounds, with a focus on recruiting and mentoring individuals from populations that have been underrepresented in science and medicine. Dr. Denburg will pursue additional evidence-based training programs designed to reinforce and enhance skills in culturally aware mentoring of early career researchers from diverse backgrounds. She will develop sustainable mentoring approaches that contribute to the wider mentoring environment and expand training infrastructure and resources to promote research in kidney disease at CHOP and Penn. Dr. Denburg’s long-term career goals are to conduct interdisciplinary clinical and translational research that improves the health and well-being of children and young adults with kidney disease and to catalyze the careers of trainees from diverse backgrounds to become independent investigators in kidney disease research. Support from the K26 award will help sustain her active mentoring program and expand her mentoring capacity to enable her to take on 1-2 new postdoctoral mentees and at least one predoctoral summer student each year of the proposed award, with a focus on mentoring of individuals underrepresented in medicine.