Research Experience and Training Coordination Core

We provide training, education, and mentoring to develop technical and professional skills that orient and prepare trainees for successful careers in their fields, and promote a culture of transdisciplinarity and community engagement that complex problems such as environmental health demand.

Each PROTECT trainee works with their mentor to develop an Individual Development Plan that extends their experiences beyond their disciplinary research. We promote team activities that connect institutions, project/cores, and disciplines. We collaborate with the Data Management and Analysis Core to introduce trainees to foundational and applied aspects of data analytics. Working with the Community Engagement, Human Subjects and Sampling, and Administrative Cores, we develop collaborative sessions that involve trainees in presentations to professional student organizations, community members and research participants.

PROTECT Trainees at the 2020 Annual Retreat in San Juan, Puerto Rico

We must engage a diverse student population in a multicultural environment to properly develop our nation’s workforce and prepare future science and engineering leaders. PROTECT is uniquely positioned for this effort since the program study site is in a developing part of Puerto Rico with a traditionally underserved population, and partner institutions are located in areas where various other underserved populations experience environmental health and justice challenges.