The G-RISE project addresses an urgent national need: to improve the quality and inter-departmental connections of advanced biomedical research workforce training that can benefit human health care. A group of 33 faculty members at The City College of New York (CCNY) has leveraged a position of research strength in the biomedical sciences within a large urban public university to address these needs. This project offers coordinated, innovative, and rigorous PhD training spanning biochemistry, biophysics, bio-organic chemistry,engineering, and neuroscience disciplines. The program supports annual cohorts of 15+ PhD trainees in biomedical sciences for five years, appointing each trainee for 1−3 years. The G-RISE mission is to complement rigorous didactic and research training with student-centered mentorship and professional skills development for its PhD trainees, while also benefitting the wider population of STEM trainees and faculty mentors at CCNY. The specific aims and strategies of the G-RISE research training program at CCNY are to:

• Recruit and retain talented PhD trainees whose biomedical research interests align with the participating CCNY faculty. Vigorous recruitment is coupled with sound mentee-mentor matching in a supportive training environment that builds individual research identities bolstered by a strong trainee cohort and Near-Peer Mentor.
• Graduate PhDs with rigorous foundational training that combines disciplinary depth with interdisciplinary breadth while progressively building independent research design skills. Interdisciplinary degree tracks and team teaching are emphasized.
• Graduate PhDs with research training that fosters individual skills and creativity, team cooperation, synergy among research groups, and increasingly independent use of state-of-the-art technologies to address critical unsolved problems in the biomedical sciences.
• Graduate PhDs whose training is enriched by co-curricular activities that build skills in communication, ethical & reproducible research, and career exploration.
• Achieve trainee outcomes, including increased numbers of PhDs who achieve timely graduation in biomedical science and engineering disciplines while improving their research productivity and post-PhD career trajectories in the US biomedical workforce.

In this project, a strategic combination of NIH and institutional resources aims to improve the reach, rigor and cohesion of biomedical research training across the City College of New York.

Ruth Stark, PhD, Director
CDI Building 1.302
85 Saint Nicholas Terrace
New York, NY 10031
rstark@ccny.cuny.edu

Reza Khayat, PhD, Co-Director
CDI Building 2.318
85 Saint Nicholas Terrace
New York, NY 10031
rkhayat@ccny.cuny.edu