Mentoring in Kidney Health to Improve Equity

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Abstract Dr. Melamed is an internationally known kidney health investigator and award-winning mentor. She has mentored 16 post-doctoral fellows in Internal Medicine and Pediatric Nephrology. Her earliest trainees currently hold R-level grants from the NIH. She has published over 130 pa- pers in the medical literature and has been continuously funded by the NIDDK since 2007. Her research includes important work on metabolic acidosis in kidney and bone health and innovative models of care in kidney disease including group-based care and the use of peer mentors in patients requiring in-center hemodialysis treatment. She is currently an MPI on 2 R01 grants. One is for a randomized clinical trial of potassium citrate to evaluate effects on bone in kidney disease using state of the art High Resolution peripheral-Quantitative Computed Tomography (HR- pQCT). The other is a secondary analysis of biomarkers of volume expansion and vascular cal- cification combining data from 3 separate (n=395) randomized, placebo controlled trials of sodium bicarbonate in patients with kidney disease. Dr. Melamed is committed to mentoring investigators from Diverse Backgrounds. She has attended multiple career development workshops on men- toring and plans on using the funding from this award to continue building her skills through work- shops, intensive one-on-one mentoring of trainees, and meeting with an Advisory Committee that will help her to become more attuned to the needs of Diverse Trainees. Her commitment to train- ing junior investigators is evidenced by her writing and obtaining funding for several training grants including being the contact MPI for an NIDDK-funded U2C/TL1 award entitled the “New York Consortium for Training in Kidney, Urological and Hematological Research”, a consortium that includes the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook. There is an additional pathway program for students at the City University of New York. This training grant, which includes 7 post-doctoral fellow and 3 pre-doctoral fellow training spots, brings together the 4 institutions to improve collaborations in these important research areas. She has access to a diverse candidate pool at Einstein and has successfully mentored several post- doctoral fellows, including several Pediatric Nephrologists, from Diverse Backgrounds to aca- demic careers in Nephrology. In sum, Dr. Melamed is an established, award-winning mentor with a successful history of mentoring researchers from Diverse Backgrounds. This award will protect her time to be able to mentor additional trainees.