Research Career Development Institute for Psychiatry

NIMH
ID: 5R13MH069748-07
PI: DAVID J. KUPFER, MD
TERM: 12/03 – 11/11

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant on NIH RePORTER): The past decade has witnessed a dwindling number of physician scientists who pursue clinical research careers in the mental health arena and a high dropout rate among those who do.

This proposal will continue a three-year collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University for the successful series of annual Research Career Development Institutes (CDI) for a broad-based group of promising junior physicians and PhDs, particularly women, minorities, and those from relatively less research-intensive departments of psychiatry, in order to provide necessary skills and support to have successful research careers in academic psychiatry.

The focus of the curriculum will be on establishing and maintaining long- term relationships between these nascent researchers, their peers, and successful faculty researchers. The specific objectives of the proposal are to:

1) continue the annual meeting for young physicians for the next four years; 2) implement a comprehensive mentoring program to establish and maintain long-term relationships between participants, peers, and mentors through regular telephone conference calls, a model Web site for training activities, annual booster sessions, and ongoing evaluation of participants’ progress towards pre-established career objectives; and 3) continue the External Advisory Board that will oversee a careful evaluation of the program, augment minority recruitment, expand participants’ subspecialty expertise, and participate in mentoring activities.

The annual four-day institute, with 19 new participants each year, will alternate between the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University.

In addition to continuing the annual institute and booster sessions which provide workshops on key academic research survival skills, the next four years will focus on:

1) developing a mentoring network which will be made up of faculty from the home institution, other universities, institute faculty, and External Advisory Board members; and 2) insuring that CDI participants obtain support at their home institutions to sustain the momentum created by a CDI by establishing a national network of communicative support to heighten the visibility of new research training efforts, to share approaches that are effective at individual institutions, and to allow participants to maintain their own collaborations.

A thorough long-term evaluation system to objectively assess the results of these training efforts will be conducted to track participants’ progress toward grant funding, publications, promotions, and achievement of individual career goals for the duration of the grant period.

DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

Chief of Research and Learning Content

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Expertise

  • autism
  • early development
  • behavioral measurement
  • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

Selected Publications

  • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
  • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
  • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
  • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
  • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.