About
The University of Utah is proud to announce the NIH T90/R90 funding award for the University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK). This innovative program, led by Principal Investigators Dr. Julie Fritz from the College of Health and Dr. Adam Gordon from the School of Medicine, aims to address the national need for advanced clinical pain research.
The UP3RK program is designed to equip post-graduate scholars with the scientific knowledge, skills, and interdisciplinary competencies to advance clinical pain research. UP3RK seeks to prepare the next generation of pain researchers to tackle the complexities of pain management and treatment in healthcare settings through a robust curriculum that spans multiple disciplines.
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Our Mission
To impart the science knowledge, skills, and core competencies needed by post-graduate, interdisciplinary Scholars to address the nation’s scientific needs in clinical pain research.
UP3RK Objectives
Objective 1: Recruit and support a diverse and interdisciplinary group of clinical pain research Scholars with particular emphasis to attract scholars underrepresented in medicine and clinical research, and those with diverse career paths and clinical backgrounds.
Objective 2: Provide a state-of-the-art training environment and curriculum to develop the next generation of clinical pain researchers with emphasis on the UP3RK focus areas; nonpharmacological pain treatments; effective interventions for pain and co-morbidities, particularly SUDs; implementation science; and research within vulnerable, diverse, and underserved populations.
Objective 3: Provide Scholars with opportunities to improve the impact of their clinical pain research careers and achieve independent research support within 5 years of completing the UP3RK program by developing career development and programmatic skills (e.g., technical, operational, professionalism, communication skills) and interdisciplinary research skills (e.g., working with an interdisciplinary research team).
Training
UP3RK is situated at the University of Utah (UU), a rich environment to train interdisciplinary Scholars on clinical pain research in diverse settings. UP3RK training focuses on our institutional strengths of:
- Nonpharmacologic pain treatment
- Effective interventions for pain and co-morbidities, particularly substance use disorders
- Implementation science
- Research with diverse and underserved populations
Annually, UP3RK supports five Scholars—within a two-year training duration—through dedicated UP3RK Mentors within an innovative, multi-level mentor model (Mentor Matrix Model) that has proven extremely successful in developing independently-funded investigators who remain in academic research careers.
The UP3RK trains our Scholars in:
- In our four focus areas
- Career development and programmatic skills
- Interdisciplinary research skills.
UP3RK’s emphasis on communication, grant writing, and team science at all levels equip our Scholars with key knowledge, skills, and abilities to advance innovations to improve health for persons with chronic pain and enable a transdisciplinary approach to team science. To accomplish our mission, we leverage new and existing local training curricula and national trainings available from the HEAL PAIN Cohort Program. We evaluate UP3RK training activities through a dedicated evaluation process. The research environment and novel training opportunities available through the UP3RK will facilitate achieving these objectives and ensure the program develops Scholars with the characteristics of successful, independent clinical pain researchers.
Our Team
Principal Investigators
Dr. Julie Fritz is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy & Athletic Training at the University of Utah. Dr. Fritz’s research career has focused on developing and evaluating nonpharmacologic interventions for patients with chronic pain. She is currently a Principal Investigator for clinical trials investigating nonpharmacologic interventions for persons with chronic musculoskeletal pain funded through the NIH-VA-DoD Pain Management Collaboratory, the NIH HEAL Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM) and Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) programs, PCORI, and the Department of Defense. Federal agencies have continuously funded Dr. Fritz’s research since 2008, and her work has included rigorous clinical trials published in high-impact journals. In addition, these studies have provided Dr. Fritz with the opportunity to engage with interdisciplinary teams of physical therapists, physicians, behavioral health specialists, informaticists, biostatisticians and healthcare economists. Her experience and expertise in developing and evaluating interventions for persons with chronic pain, and leading inter-disciplinary teams conducting clinical trials will be invaluable in the role as a Principal Investigator for the University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK) along with Dr. Adam Gordon. Dr. Fritz has worked with Dr. Gordon in collaborative research and mentoring efforts, and she looks forward to working with him to train clinical pain researchers. Dr. Gordon and Dr. Fritz share a commitment to mentoring the next generation of investigators dedicated to clinical pain research that improves the lives of persons with chronic pain and related conditions. In her role as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Health at the University of Utah, Dr. Fritz mentors and promotes the professional development of junior faculty and trainees, helping them to gain the resources they need to be successful in their research agendas. She has personally mentored a total of 38 pre-doctoral trainees, 4 post-doctoral trainees and 7 junior faculty researchers including 5 K current of former awardees. This mentoring experience has helped Dr. Fritz gain the ability to align expectations in the context of a mentoring relationship, assess mentees’ level of understanding and ability. All of the post-doctoral and junior faculty researchers she has mentored remain in academia and several have highly successful independent research programs with sustained extramural funding, demonstrating Dr. Fritz’s ability to foster independence in my mentees. She has been a mentor in the University of Utah’s Vice President Clinical and Translational (VPCAT) Research Scholars Program from 2014-2021, providing mentorship to 14 junior faculty members at the University of Utah from a variety of disciplines including medicine, nursing, psychology, and physical therapy. The VPCAT mentoring model promotes matrix mentoring structure with an emphasis on effective communication and inter-disciplinary relationships. From 2018-2022, Dr. Fritz was a mentor in the University of Utah’s Health Equity Leadership & Mentoring (U-HELM) program that provides mentoring and leadership development opportunities to junior faculty and postdoctoral scholars from under-represented populations in the health sciences. She received training as a U-HELM mentor from the National Research Mentoring Network and additional training in cultural diversity which has provided invaluable skills to address diversity and work effectively with mentees from backgrounds that differ from her own. The research and mentoring experiences and training Dr. Fritz has engaged in make her well-suited to serve as a Principal Investigator for the UP3RK program at the University of Utah. The VPCAT mentoring model serves as a foundation for the UP3RK. Serving as a scientific and institutional mentor in the VPCAT program, Dr. Fritz learned strategies to help mentees set and achieve their research goals, understand their personal strengths, and identify areas for development. The U-HELM program is not a traditional research mentoring program, but instead focuses on supporting trainees from under-represented populations with a focus on cultural identities, micro-aggressions and lack of diversity in the workplace and resilience. Dr. Fritz is excited to bring her experience and mentoring background to the UP3RK program.
Dr. Adam Gordon is excited to be an MPI and co-Director on the “University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK)” that will train the next generation of pain investigators. Drs Fritz and Gordon have collaborated on multiple projects and, importantly, been a mentor for junior scholars. Dr. Gordon has a 25+ year track record of conducting research on the quality, equity, and efficiency of health care for vulnerable populations, including those with co-occurring pain and substance use disorders. His professional mission is to improve the access and quality of care of patients who have vulnerabilities, including those with addiction disorders and co-occurring pain syndromes. Dr. Gordon is the Elbert F. and Marie Christensen Endowed Research Professor, tenured Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and the Section Chief of Addiction Medicine at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. He is a board-certified internal medicine and addiction medicine physician and is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians (FACP) and a Distinguished Fellow in the American Society of Addiction Medicine (DFASAM). Dr. Gordon is the PI of the Greater Intermountain Node (GIN), a Center site of the NIH NIDA Clinical Trials Network; He is the founder and Director of the Program for Addiction Research, Clinical Care, Knowledge, and Advocacy (PARCKA); founder and Emeritus Director of the Vulnerable Veteran Innovative Patient-Aligned-Care-Team (VIP) Initiative, a clinical-evaluation initiative at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. Dr. Gordon is a Core Faculty member of the VA Salt Lake City Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Analytic Sciences (IDEAS) Center, a Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Center of Innovation (COIN). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Substance Abuse (impact factor 3.9). Dr. Gordon’s methodologic skills include health services, clinical trial, large database, and implementation science research. He has received efforts on over 100 federal peer reviewed grants from the NIH, VA, AHRQ, PCORI, and SAMHSA, and has authored over 330 peer reviewed articles (40.8% authored with mentees) in high impact journals (e.g., JAMA, BMJ, Lancet; H-index=59) and presented/published hundreds of scholarly works. Dr. Gordon was awarded one of VA HSR&D’s highest honors by receipt of the 2021 VA Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) “Health System Impact Award” and received the 2022 David C. Lewis, MD Service to Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction (AMERSA) Award. He is a mentor on over a dozen current or prior VA, NIH K-, or institutional K-awards, and has been honored locally and nationally for his mentorship abilities. His mentoring mission is to develop symbiotic and collaborative relationships with scholars interested in pursuing an independent research career in pain and/or addiction fields. Dr. Gordon’s recognition as an exemplary mentor is a testament that this approach has fostered dozens of independent clinical investigational careers. Many of Dr. Gordon’s prior and current mentees have been diverse from his race/ethnicity and he accounts often for his professional and gender/race/ethnicity biases. He is particularly proud of his mentoring of women scholars; his SAj Associate Editorial board consists of more women and minorities than males and majority races/ethnicity. He strongly believes that mentees should explore their own aspirations and while Dr. Gordon introduces mentees to his own projects, he does not force them to undertake scholarship in his own work. Developing and implementing strategies for a mentees’ unique personal, professional, and investigational growth is extremely important to Dr. Gordon. His mentees generally meet with him at least monthly, and often weekly if they are junior. Dr. Gordon fosters an approach that encourages pilot and large (R01) level work, peer-reviewed scholarly publications, and training to meet the mentees’ needs. His track record of >40% of his 325 authored published peer reviewed work consisting of mentees as first, co-, and senior authors is a testament to achieving this approach. Dr. Gordon seeks to build mentees’ confidence. Not all mentoring relationships work. He fosters and acknowledges mentees’ accomplishments, both personal, professional, and investigational. Dr. Gordon encourages mentees to set the agenda for the mentor-mentee meetings, he adapts to different communication styles, and he fosters a “team based” approach on the mentoring team. Finally, Dr. Gordon dedicates specific regular mentor-mentee meetings for discussions of “mission statement”, “elevator speeches”, and academic promotion. He encourages (and financially supports) his mentees to attend professional research conferences and introduce mentees to international colleagues and scholars to enhance their collaborations with scholars who can propel the mentees’ independent careers. Above all else, Dr. Gordon celebrates his mentees’ personal accomplishments on par with their professional accomplishments.plishments.
Our mentors
Dr. Mary Jo Pugh is excited to be a mentor on the “University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK)” that will train the next generation of pain investigators. Over the past 20+ years Dr. Pugh’s research funded by the VA, DoD and NIH has focused on complex comorbidity, and more recently complex comorbidity in Veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Major components of that complex comorbidity include pain, substance use disorder and mental health conditions. She has conducted foundational longitudinal epidemiological research identifying phenotypes of pain and pain treatment and associated outcomes using large database, clinical evaluation, biological and neuroimaging biomarkers, longitudinal survey, and ecological momentary assessment. The emerging work is focusing on quality and equity of care for Veterans with complex comorbidity phenotypes in conjunction with long-term outcomes. Dr. Pugh has mentored undergraduate, graduate, MD, and PhD trainees, and junior through tenured faculty. In addition, her post-doctoral mentees have received research career awards and have obtained large research grants. She uses a matrix mentoring approach where each mentee has at least one scientific mentor, one professional development mentor, and one content mentor. Dr. Pugh involves graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty in mentoring research staff, undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows so that there is a near peer component that allows each mentee to gain some experience in mentoring. As a testament to Dr. Pugh’s mentoring expertise, she was recently funded by the Department of Defense to co-lead a national program for Post-traumatic Epilepsy Research. Throughout Dr. Pugh’s career she has been strongly supportive of hiring, training, and working with diverse staff and collaborators as she believes only through Addressing Diversity can we move the needle on improving the quality of research, clinical care and patient outcomes. Over the years her staff/mentees have included over 30 individuals meeting criteria by NIH for under-represented minorities, including 10 (of 30) current staff, fellows, and graduate students. Dr. Pugh has been a mentor for junior faculty for the Utah Health Equity, Leadership and Mentoring program for the past two years and mentor diverse junior faculty across the country related to epilepsy research. She believes the diversity in her teams over the past 20 years, and her approach to Addressing Expectations, where mentees explore their own interests while working on my projects, is a large part of the success of the work and the success of mentees. She meets weekly with junior mentees and monthly with more senior mentees. These meetings are led by the agenda of the mentee. Dr. Pugh has learned that Maintaining Effective Communication requires that she also adapts to the communication styles of the diverse mentees. This approach has allowed her to Foster Independence, by supporting personal, professional and scientific accomplishments. While professional and scientific accomplishments are often the focus of mentoring outcomes, she celebrates personal accomplishments as much or more because Dr. Pugh knows without personal accomplishments and priorities, scientific accomplishments are hollow and less likely to occur. In addition to research expertise, Dr. Pugh believes it is critical to Promote Professional Development in mentees. As the first person in her family to attend college, she realizes how critical this is—particularly for those who do not grow up in a home with academic cultural capital. In addition to regular mentor-mentee sessions, Dr. Pugh’s team has developed a dedicated monthly seminar to provide peer mentoring on issues relevant to professional development focused on how to communicate individual research programs using “elevator speeches” and issues specific to advancing academic promotion. Dr. Pugh encourages (and financially supports) her mentees to attend professional research conferences, introduces them to colleagues with similar or related interests to facilitate additional collaborations which allow them to develop independent research careers.
Dr. JD Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences, Division of Systems Innovation and Research, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah. He is an implementation scientist and clinical psychologist. The primary focus of Dr. Smith’s research is developing and applying novel research methodologies to test implementation of evidence-based interventions in healthcare and community-based delivery systems, particularly for populations and in settings and systems with marked health disparities. He is well prepared to serve as a Mentor on Drs. Julie Fritz and Adam Gordon’s University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK) training program. Prior to joining the University of Utah (9/1/2020) where he was recruited to direct the Health Behavior Intervention Implementation and Translation (HaBiiT) Core in the Utah Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center and to lead the Implementation Science Core in the Utah Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI), Dr. Smith was Associate Director of the NIH-funded Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (Ce-PIM) for Drug Abuse and HIV at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In addition to being Founding Director of Dissemination and Implementation Science Core in the Utah Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Dr. Smith is currently MPI and Co-Director of the CIRCL-Chicago Implementation Research Center, funded as part of NHLBI’s DECIPHeR Alliance, focused on primary care-based interventions for hypertension among African Americans on Chicago’s South Side. He is also the Director of the Research and Methods Core of the NCI-funded HOPE & CAIRHE 2Gether Center (Contact PI David Wetter), Director of the Implementation Science Integration Core of the NICHD-funded ELEVATE Maternal Health Center of Excellence, Co-Director of the Research Design and Implementation Core of the NCI-funded Northwestern University IMPACT Research Center, and Director of the Systematic Review Core of the HIV Implementation Science Coordination Initiative (ISCI)—the national coordinating center for the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (now 200+ projects funded. Dr. Smith is deeply committed to mentoring, training, and capacity building in implementation science methodology and research to speed the translation of evidence-based practices, programs, interventions, medications, and policies to real-world practice settings to reduce the burden of disease and disorder for all. The bulk of his research mentoring and training is with early-stage investigators through K Awards and the multiple training institutes in which he leads or participates. These include being Founding Co-Director of the Mountain States Partnership for Community-Engaged Dissemination and Implementation Science (MS-CEDI) (a collaboration between the University of Utah and the Arizona State University); Core Faculty of the HIV Implementation Science Training Institute housed at Johns Hopkins University; faculty mentor of the Implementation Research Institute, the NIH/OBSSR Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (TIDIRH) and its sister program the NIH/NCI Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer (TIDIRC), and the DOD-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium Scholars Program. He is also committed to mentoring postdoctoral fellows and am primary mentor for a current fellow in Utah’s NLM-funded T15 training program in clinical informatics. Dr. Smith has also mentored doctoral students and is currently primary mentor on a NIH/MHLBI F31. He has also been a potential mentor on five NIH(NIMH/NCI/NIDDK) T32 programs and has a pending T32 from NIDDK for which he is the MPI. He has conducted trainings on four continents through such entities as the Global Alliance for Chronic Disease and a NIH/Fogarty funded D43 training program. Last, Dr. Smith is the Founding Director of the new Graduate Certificate Program in Implementation Science at the University of Utah that includes graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members. He will bring extensive expertise and experience in research mentorship and training to the UP3RK training program.
Dr. Jerry Cochran is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology at the University of Utah and serves as the Director of Research for the Program on Addiction Research, Clinical Care, Knowledge, and Advocacy within the Division of Epidemiology. He also has an adjunct Professor appointment within the University of Utah School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and is core faculty with the Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Analytic Sciences Center of Innovation within the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. Dr. Cochran has extensive expertise in clinical-level behavioral health services research. His experience has focused on development and testing of evidence-based practices for addressing opioid misuse, use disorder, and related health conditions and outcomes—with particular emphasis on perinatal opioid use disorder. The majority of funding for his work has come from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the state of Utah. Dr. Cochran is a Multiple-PI for the Greater Intermountain Node of the NIDA Clinical Trials Network (CTN), in which he is the lead, site PI, and coinvestigator on large scale multisite clinical trials testing interventions for opioid use disorder. He is currently PI, MPI, or coinvestigator on a number of studies focused on designing, testing, and implementing services and interventions for those with substance use disorder and associated risks. He has published 105 articles within peer-reviewed journals, with the majority specifically related to monitoring and treatment of opioid-related risk and addiction. During the last 10 years of Dr. Cochran’s academic career, he has been primary or on the mentoring teams of more than 20 students, fellows, and junior faculty across diverse training backgrounds within the health sciences disciplines—including urology, obstetrics, public health, and social work (to name of few). Given the varied professional backgrounds of these individuals and career aspirations, it has been important for Dr. Cochran in these experiences to align expectations with these mentees. To do so, he seeks to maintain effective communication by having weekly or monthly meetings that follow a format of checking in progress, answering current questions, and revisiting and adjusting short- and long-term goals as needed. These regular meetings also enable Dr. Cochran to assess understanding of the individual and their need to gain additional training in specific areas, to engage in work around publishing, and submitting grants. These regular meetings also allow him and an individual mentee to work together to promote professional development experiences that are tailored to helping the individual to maintain their personal life while staying focused on their career and achievement. In these experiences, he has published extensively with these individuals, aided them in successfully obtaining extramural funding (including federal funding), and helped them to launch into the next steps of their education and careers in academia, health care, and industry. In achieving these accomplishments, Dr. Cochran consistently seeks to foster independence of these mentees by having them begin by working on his projects, then moving to lead some aspect of his projects, and then finally leading out in their work. Dr. Cochran has also had extensive classroom teaching experience, including research methods, evaluation methods, and healthcare policy courses. Altogether, his current research portfolio, mentoring track record, and teaching experiences have uniquely prepared me to be a significant contributor to the currently proposed program—enabling it and the trainees that will be associated therewith to achieve their laudable goals.
Dr. Molly Conroy is a practicing primary care physician, academic leader, and clinician investigator with the requisite qualifications to serve as Co-Primary Mentor to Dr. Halliday in the proposed K01 project. She is a Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine (DGIM) at the University of Utah (UU), where she is also the John Rex and Alice C. Winder Presidential Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine and an Adjunct Professor of Health Sciences, Division of Health System Research Innovation and Research. Throughout her career, Dr. Conroy has mentored medical students, residents, fellows, and early career faculty in their research projects and in leadership development. She has more than 18 years of continuous extramural funding to lead research focused on maintaining healthy weight, increasing physical activity, and improving cardiovascular risk profiles, with a special emphasis on pragmatic randomized controlled trials conducted in routine clinical care settings. Supporting the next generation of clinician investigators is at the heart of her professional activities. At the University of Utah, Dr. Conroy plays an active role in mentoring clinician investigators in the Department of Internal Medicine and other departments across campus. She has demonstrated commitment to mentoring Dr. Halliday consistently over the past 4 years and is the Primary Mentor for her current KL2 award. She is also the co-PI/co-Director of two University-based programs designed to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion through research training and leadership development: The Utah Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (Utah StARR) program (an NHLBI-funded initiative to increase the number of clinician investigators with a health disparities focus), and the Utah Health Equity Leadership & Mentoring Program (U-HELM; a locally funded program to increase support underrepresented post-docs and junior faculty in health sciences). Dr. Conroy is well-suited to serve as Primary Co-Mentor for Dr. Halliday’s K01 given her expertise in randomized controlled trials and weight management, as well as her scholarship and leadership in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Halliday and Dr. Conroy currently meet bi-weekly and will continue to meet at least bi-weekly during the proposed K01 award period. She will also be joining the team meetings for Dr. Conroy’s current NIDDK R18 (1R18DK123372-01A1) on a regular basis as part of her training aims related to qualitative research methodology; clinical trial design; clinical trial implementation; and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Over the past 20 years, Dr. Paul Estabrooks has developed strong expertise in applying dissemination and implementation science (DIS) methods and models across a range of content areas. Currently, he is working as: (1) an MPI for projects on implementation of rapid genome sequencing in the NICU (NCATS), obesity prevention in American Indian children (NCI), integration of social determinants screening and resolution in tobacco cessation (NCI), (2) a co-investigator overseeing DIS aspects of the integration of brain injury screening in organizations providing services to women experiencing intimate partner violence (NINDS), childhood obesity treatment in rural communities (CDC), reduced sedentary behavior in the workplace (NCI), and diabetes prevention in rural communities (NIDDK), and (3) a mentor on 2 K-awards focused on physical activity promotion post stem cell transplant (NCI) and integration of rapid genome sequencing in the NICU (NHGRI). Dr. Estabrooks’ experience and expertise in planning, designing, implementing, sustaining, and spreading DIS across a range of disciplines, settings, organizations, and professional groups will contribute to his ability to mentor post-doctoral trainees in applying DIS to pain research. In addition, he has a strong track record of mentoring early career professionals with a goal to promote professional development in DIS. Dr. Estabrooks has been the primary mentor for over 22 pre-doctoral, 5 post-doctoral, and 10 early and mid-career faculty trainees, who have had success in securing awards from the National Institutes of Health (6 R01, 2 project proposals within a U54 center grant; 3 R21, 1 R34 awards, 3 K awards), Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (1 comparative effectiveness; 1 engagement contract), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (1 Public Health Scholar, 1 U01 award), the American Heart Association (2 pre-doctoral, 2 post-doctoral fellowships). Across these mentoring relationships he has developed processes to increase the alignment of expectations with mentees that begins in the interview process and includes continuous check-ins and regular communication to ensure that our shared expectations are met. Dr. Estabrooks key mentoring principles include providing opportunities to maintain effective communication and building trust through accountability as a mentor and mentee. He also regularly uses investigator development plans to assess mentee understanding and identify key areas of need to improve research productivity with an eye to work-life balance. Through this process, Dr. Estabrooks has been able to foster mentee independence using tactics that include a replication of the medical ‘see one, do one, teach one’ approach and providing opportunity for trainees to learn from a range of trainees, staff, and faculty. Finally, he is committed to addressing diversity across my mentoring relationships. Diversity in backgrounds and thought makes for strong researchers and research teams. Over the course of Dr. Estabrooks’ mentoring, he is grateful for the opportunities he has had to engage with early career professionals, with over 40% of my mentees being from racial and ethnic minoritized groups, first generation university students, and the LBGTQ+ community. These experiences have taught Dr. Estabrooks humility and flexibility in providing mentoring that is supportive and equitable to the specific needs of individual mentees. The research and mentoring experiences make him well-suited to serve as a mentor for the UP3RK program at the University of Utah and he is exceptionally excited to participate in this proposal and program.
Please contact kristi.carlston@hsc.utah.edu with inquires.