CDEIPI Monthly Newsletter

May 2022

Each month, the CDEIPI newsletter will spotlight one of the CDEIPI programs.

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

Texas D-CFAR Initiative to Promote Diversity in HIV Science

The Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI program is led by Fred Pereira, PhD, Andy Rice, PhD and Alana Newell, PhD (Baylor College of Medicine) and colleagues from the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions in Houston and the Science Academy of South Texas High School, Bernice A. Shargey, PhD, Marco Antonio Lara, Jr., EdD, Efrain Garza, MEd, Marcos Flores, MEd, and Criselda Rodriguez-Flores, MEd.

The Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI program engages URM/BIPOC high school students at DeBakey High School in Houston and the Science Academy of South Texas in HIV Science through

workshops on virology, HIV, and research with graduate students serving as their mentors. Participants are also granted junior Texas D-CFAR membership to expose them to the HIV science being conducted by Texas researchers and to afford them the opportunity to experience the community and excitement of HIV science.

The Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI program also engages URM/BIPOC graduate students in HIV science beginning with HIV research presentations to matriculating graduate students prior to entrance into graduate programs to highlight HIV research opportunities to stimulate their interest in the field. Graduate student participants receive mentorship to advance their careers and skills and participate in prestigious virtual national HIV meetings to gain knowledge, understand gaps in the field, and network with students and researchers from around the world.

For more information on the Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI program, click here.

ADMINISTRATIVE CORE UPDATES

We are approaching the end of the CDEIPI Year 1 award period on May 31, 2022. We expect that GWU will issue no cost extensions to the CDEIPI Year 1 subawards to extend the award period from June 1, 2022 through November 30, 2022. Please note that no additional funding will be added to the subawards and that the no cost extensions are pending our receipt of the DC CFAR’s notice of grant award from NIH for our project year starting on June 1, 2022. The Administrative Core will be in touch with the program leads shortly to provide guidance on the process for submitting a no cost extension request. As a reminder, CDEIPI Year 2 awards will be made as administrative supplements directly from NIH, not as subawards from GWU.

Contact: Patti Simon at psimon@gwu.edu with any questions or concerns.

PROGRAM CORE UPDATES

On April 28, the Program Core held its monthly meeting of the program leads from each of the CDEIPI sites. The April call included a handful of administrative updates (see above) and breakout discussions focused on mentoring. Participants met in small groups to discuss the mentoring features and philosophies of their CDEIPI programs and reported back to the larger group. Topics raised included how programs focus on academic mentoring and career development, matching mentors and mentees, and strategies for mentoring across differences. Several program leads agreed to share documents that they created – such as an expectations agreement for mentors, and a mentoring contract for mentors and mentees – with their fellow program leads.

On May 2, the Program Core sent each of the Program Leads a template to prepare their progress reports, which are due to Brandi Robinson on June 30. Please let us know if you have any questions.

For more information, please see the meeting slides and recording.

Next Meeting: Thursday, May 26 from 3-4 PM ET

Contact: Brandi Robinson at bnrobin@gwu.edu for more information.

EVALUATION CORE UPDATES

The Evaluation Core held its monthly meeting on April 28 to review highlights from the initial quarterly evaluation survey, discuss the individual-level domains for study and the proposed survey design, and for brief updates from the CDEIPI evaluation leads. Dr. Manya Magnus reviewed the draft mentee survey instrument, which was developed in concert with the evaluation leads. This survey, which will be administered centrally by the Evaluation Core, will use REDCap to collect data on the selected domains. Based on input from the evaluation leads, the Evaluation Core will create an additional optional question bank available for each site to use, if desired. This agreed-upon hybrid model supports low participant burden but high consistency across sites for the most important measures. Finally, the Evaluation Core will assist sites to “cross-walk” their local evaluations with the central evaluation effort to harmonize this essential data collection.

As a reminder, the next quarterly data collection will be due on July 15, 2022.

For more information, please see the meeting slides and recording.

Next Meeting: Thursday, May 26 from 1-2 PM ET

Contact: Lorena Segarra at lsegarra@gwu.edu for more information.

We look forward to sharing updates and resources with you in this newsletter and on our website. Please let us know if there are other ways the CDEIPI Coordinating Center can support your important work.

Visit our Website

CDEIPI is a supplement to the DC CFAR, an NIH-funded program (P30AI117970), which is supported by the following NIH Co-Funding and Participating Institutes and Centers: NIAID, NCI, NICHD, NIDCR, NHLBI, NIDA, NIMH, NIA, NIDDK, NINR, NIMHD, FIC, and OAR. The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.