Leading and Receiving Training at NIH

In this week's episode, we hear from Dr. Kenneth Gibbs on training opportunities at NIGMS, the importance of finding career success, aligning your values, and more. We then hear from Dr. Petria Thompson and Valeria Velez Galiano on being a postbaccalaureate fellow at NCI and the many opportunities at NIH that support your career journey. Segment 1: Kenneth Gibbs, Ph.D. Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) (K99/R00 and UE5) Bridges to the Baccalaureate (T34) Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) (T34) Maximizing Access to Research Careers (T34)Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) (R25) Bridges to the Doctorate (T32) Graduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (G-RISE) (T32)Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) (T32)NIH Common Fund Diversity Program Consortium, NIH Common Fund InitiativeNCI Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program The Invisible University: Postdoctoral Education in the United States Planning a Career in Today's LandscapeFrom pipettes to policy: Reflections on a decade working to expand opportunity and equity in science Ad: NCI Future Fellows Application System Segment 2: Petria Thompson, MD, PhD Valeria Velez Galiano, B.S.Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award (Postbac IRTA/CRTA) NIH Postbac Career Services Your Turn: Guests Recommendations: TV Show: New Star Trek: Picard & Discovery Play: CeramicsPodcast: Ordinarily ExtraordinaryBook: Misconceiving Merit: Paradoxes of Excellence and Devotion in Academic Science and Engineering [UPBEAT MUSIC] OLIVER BOGLER: Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler. I work at the NCI in the Center for Cancer Training. On Inside Cancer Careers, we explore all the different ways that people join the fight against disease, and hear their stories. Today, we're talking to Dr. Kenny Gibbs from NIGMS, who has studied the biomedical career and developed and managed a series of key programs to support early career scientists from diverse backgrounds and shares his perspective on where we are today. After the break, we turn our attention to the NIH Postbac program and learn how participating in research at NCI for a year or two after your bachelor's can be a great experience and steppingstone. We have two guests: an alum and a current participant. Stick around to the end to hear how you can take your turn and benefit from the suggestions and recommendations made by our guests. OLIVER: It's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Kenny Gibbs to the podcast today, welcome. KENNY GIBBS: Thank you Oliver, great to be here. OLIVER: Dr. Gibbs is the chief of the undergraduate and predoctoral cross-disciplinary training branch of the National Institute of General Medical sciences here at NIH. He also serves as a program director for a portfolio of awards in the area of stem cell biology within the division of genetics, and molecular, and cellular, and developmental biology. Dr. Gibbs you've been engaged in programs to enhance diversity in the biomedical workforce for some time. And I wonder if we could start with what your assessment is of where we are with this important work in 2023. GIBBS: Yeah, thank you for the question, Oliver. You know, I got poetic, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, I don't know if it's necessarily the worst of times. But I think, you know, I'm dispositionally optimistic. And so, I see clear progress on a number of fronts. And so, some of this work I've done and published, but you can look at, for example, where we were as it relates to better engaging the entire population, including those from underrepresented groups, you know, three or four decades ago to now. And there's a clear increase at all levels. Now, there's still also clear gaps between sort of the available talent pool and the talent pool people who get biomedically relevant bachelor's degrees or research focused higher degrees. And so, in that respect there is progress, we also haven't fully actualized our desire to, or really the imperative to make sure we have all available minds on the playing field, right? Because that's how we identify and then go about solving complex biomedical problems. You know, I just say, through time, you know, there are varying currents and so there are different currents at various levels of government, which I won't elaborate on, where there are both efforts to advance these issues rapidly and then efforts to focus on a vocabulary and other things like that. And so my main work is focusing on continuing the work of ensuring we enable opportunities for promising trainees from all backgrounds, all meaning all. To participate in the biomedical research workforce. And then one thing I'll note is, a number of positive NIH-wide initiatives and one that I've been involved in very recently is the MOSAIC program ...