BUILD PODER has four Principal Investigators and four “cores,” or central areas of emphasis.
Each NIH BUILD program has four "core" responsibilities. At CSUN::
The Administrative Core provides oversight to BUILD PODER and reflects our relationships with the NIH, our Local Steering Committee, our evaluation team, CARE (Center for Assessment, Research, and Education) and our regular meetings, events, and record-keeping. The Program Director of the Administrative Core is Crist Khachikian.
The Institutional Development Core provides resources that provide sustainability (enduring into the future) and integration into California State University, Northridge's mission and priorities. Through BUILD PODER, we have a new building, Lilac Hall, four new cluster hired faculty members, and we are preparing for the opening of the Health Equity Research and Education Center after consulting with our campus and outside partners to ensure that our charter is in line with the needs of the institution as well as our foundation and skill set. In addition, through the leadership of the Institutional Development Core Program Director, Crist Khachikian, we have developed a "Faculty App" that provides a forum for faculty to publicly present their research interests, skills, and availability for collaboration with colleagues or research assistance with students.
The Research Enrichment Core provides faculty with research opportunities, skills, and mentor training to prepare them to be the best research mentors that they can be. The Research Enrichment core's research training include the Faculty Scholar Academy grant-writing training and coaching, the Pilot Project program, and regular conferences and opportunities to have one's work edited or to work collaboratively with other faculty members on grant proposals. The faculty research mentor training, a highlight of the Research Enrichment Core, is rooted in our Critical Race Theory foundations and challenges faculty members to become aware of and to respond to unconscious biases about students who are different from ourselves. The Program Director of the RE Core is Carrie Saetermoe, who gratefully welcomes the support of Patty Kwan, Department of Health Sciences, and Angie Guan, Department of Child and Adolescent Development.
The centerpiece of BUILD PODER is the Student Training Core. Gabriela Chavira, Program Director, is joined by Gilberto Flores, Department of Biology. Professor Chavira oversees the mentoring and professional development to nearly 200 undergraduates in 30 majors and is the mastermind of the multiple ST Core activities. Central to the ST Core is the initial Summer JumpStart program, a 4-week intensive in which students learn basic research skills, research ethics, learn about the broader contexts of science and forming a science identity, and they meet with and learn more about their mentor and their new research laboratory. Each cohort is a community, and each cohort forms a mentoring bond with other cohorts.
