Predoctoral Program in Cellular, Molecular and Quantitative Biology (CMQBTP)

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SUMMARY The predoctoral Cellular, Molecular and Quantitative Biology Training Program (CMQBTP) will be a comprehensive, rigorous and forward-thinking program designed to graduate the leaders of the 21st century biomedical workforce. It will bring together a group of talented students from diverse backgrounds interested in developing the technical, operational, and professional skills essential for their future careers both in and outside of academia. These students will apply to the CMQBTP through two graduate admission tracks that feed four degree granting departments: Cell Biology, Genetics, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. Thus, the students will be immersed in an interdisciplinary training environment that prioritizes collaborative team science based on rigorous and quantitative experimental design and analysis. Our 60 training faculty are diverse and represent all ranks of the academic ladder. They have all been National Research Mentoring Network-trained and thus prioritize mentoring students within a safe, equitable and supportive environment. The mission of the CMQBTP is to develop rigorously trained early- career scientists prepared to operate ethically as future scientific leaders. It will advance 6 Training Objectives so that trainees master a well-defined set of transferable technical, operational and professional skills. This will be facilitated by a set of CMQBTP-specific courses and activities designed to not only teach the specific skills but also to build a cohesive cross-cohort community of scholars. Activities for CMQBTP trainees throughout their graduate career are designed to enrich their education while providing experiences to effectively inform their future career choices. We will lead a “Skills Development for Diverse Scientific Careers” (to develop transferable skills beyond academia), Informational Interview workshops (to help identify viable career options), a course on “Statistical Inference and Models in Molecular and Cellular Biology” (to enhance reproducibility and rigor), an annual student-run Symposium Retreat (to develop leadership skills) and regular research in progress talks (to learn about their exciting discoveries). These activities are paired with peer mentoring and community building initiatives designed to forge a sustainable CMQBTP community that will persist beyond graduate school. To ensure the continued growth and improvement of our program, we have instituted a modern set of evaluation tools designed by PhD-level educators well-trained in program assessment and are independent of the CMQBTP leadership. These assessments will provide quantitative metrics to evaluate whether students are meeting competency benchmarks and whether our faculty are succeeding as trainers. These assessment and outcome datasets will be made fully available to CMQBTP trainers and prospective students to better inform their mentorship practices and future career goals, respectively. Particular attention will be paid to ensure that faculty will be rigorously trained in and evaluated on inclusive mentoring practices to ensure our mission of creating a CMQBTP that provides equal opportunities for all trainees to flourish.