On Monday, September 19th, The PROTECT team kicked off the 2016-2017 academic year with the annual Trainee Orientation. This multi-institutional meeting hosted by the Training Core is held every fall as a means of introducing new student trainees to PROTECT. The event also serves as an update for all attendees on the progress the PROTECT team has made in the year before.
PROTECT ordinarily aims to share their progress at these events through the “State of PROTECT” address given by the program Principal Investigator, Akram Alshawabkeh. Alshawabkeh discussed some of the accomplishments and challenges faced in the program since last year’s Orientation, and he shared some of his plans for the upcoming retreat in Puerto Rico. Alshawabkeh also highlighted some of the positive impacts PROTECT has been making in Puerto Rico and encouraged team members to keep up their exemplary work.
Another highlight of the event included presentations by PROTECT’s 2016 Trainee Individual Development Plan award winners: Vilda Rivera, Elana Elkin, and Norma Torres. Each winner will be provided with a $1,500 stipend to be used towards attending a conference of their choice from a list of pre-approved options. The three trainees gave brief presentations describing their award-winning accomplishments with PROTECT and informed the audience which conference they would be using their stipend to attend.
The Trainee Orientation concluded with a series of videos created by each Project and Core. The videos creatively summarized each team’s work and are now available for online viewing. Click on the links below to see the videos made this year by each team:
Project 1: Phthalate Exposure and Epidemiologic Markers of Preterm Birth
Project 2: Pollutant Activation of Cell Pathways in Gestational Tissues
Project 3: Xenobiotics Associated with Preterm Birth
Project 4: Transport and Exposure Pathways of Phthalates
Project 5: Green Remediation in Groundwater
Human Subjects Core and Community Engagement Core
Data Management and Modeling Core
You can also view the full video playlist below:
Thanks to everyone who made this meeting a success!