The Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity (IMSD) is an educational training grant awarded to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). The primary goal of this initiative is to increase the number of underrepresented student populations that attain PhDs in biomedical research and biostatistics.
IMSD graduate students interested in pursuing a PhD in the biomedical sciences have the opportunity to conduct research in one of over 300 research labs. Carolina is a leader in biomedical research. Dr. Oliver Smithies, Professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, is a co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine.
IMSD graduate students interested in pursuing a PhD in biostatistics can join the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health and apply innovative statistical methods to problems of human health and disease, including basic medical sciences.
To Apply to Graduate School in the Biomedical Sciences
To Apply to Graduate School in Biostatistics
*** CURRENT NEWS ***
- Maile Henson was offerd a postdoc position at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences in Serena Dudek’s lab studying synapse elimination.
- Troy Mceachron and Cathy Cruz were invited to the University of California at San Francisco’s PostDoc Bootcamp.
- Vanessa Gonzalez was one of only 200 graduate students invited to attend NIH’s graduate student festival.
- Michael Johnson and Daniel Dominguez hosted a workshop for undergraduates at the University of Virgin Islands in Spetember.
- Daud Cole completed the Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship Program at UNC’s Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative
- .Jonathon Leano was awarded a summer externship at GlaxoSmithKline.
- Jasmyn Dardy was awarded a summer externship at Parion Sciences.
- Grace Silva was awarded a summer externship at Advanced Liquid Logics.
- Congratulations to Sean Simpson who started a tenure track assistant professor position at the University of Wake Forest in August, 2008.
- Cicely Mitchell is co-author on a paper recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Rural Health : "Racial Differences in HPV Knowledge, HPV Vaccine Acceptability, and Related Beliefs Among Rural, Southern Women."
- Cathy Cruz was awarded a Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award entitled “Alphavirus Modulation of the Host Type I Interferon System”.
- Cathy Cruz and Vanessa Gonzales are mentoring summer research interns from the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. IMSD welcomes Marilisi Riveria and Ivette Tapia to UNC-CH for the summer.
- Le Shara Fulton was offered a summer extern position at Becton Dickenson working with Dr. Shannon Dillmore in the nanotechnology and diagnostics division.
- Michael Johnson and Jaclyn Ellis created and led a workshop on Genomic DNA and Bioinformatics for first year undergraduates at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey.
- Vanessa Gonzalez and Tricia Wright were among twenty students selected nationally for the Bio International Scholarship Award. The award will fund their travel to the Bio International Meeting in San Diego June 17th through June 20th and match them with a Industry Mentor who will advise and support their interest in an industry career during a 12 month period.
- Vanessa Gonzalez was co-author on a chapter in Methods in Enzymology, 2008;439:425-449 entitled Use of Caenorhabditis Elegans to Evaluate Inhibitors of Ras Function in Vivo.
- Olguitza Guzman recieved an honorable mention from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her Graduate Research Fellowship Proposal. The NSF accords Honorable Mention to meritorious applicants who do not receive fellowship awards. This is considered a significant academic achievement nationwide and provides access to cyberinfrastructure resources through the TeraGrid for a period of one year following notification of the Honorable Mention. Olguitza was one of six University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biomedical graduate students to receive this recognition.
- Olguitza Guzman was awarded a 2008 AACR Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award on 1/28/2008
- Maile Henson's first author paper "Developmental Regulation of the NMDA Receptor Subunits, NR3A and NR1, in Human Prefrontal Cortex" was just accepted for publication in Cerebral Cortex.
- Tricia Wright was recently awarded a Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award entitled "Analysis of the Novel Kinase ROR2: A New Molecular Target in Renal Cell Carinoma".
- Shannon Jones was awarded one of four training slots in the HHMI Med Into Grad Training Program