The Clinical Research Education, Mentoring & Career Development Core organized the 2nd Annual Retreat on January 9th 2015. This year the retreat was planned around the theme 'Research Mentoring'. Dr. Christine Pfund from University of Wisconsin-Madison was invited as a guest speaker.

Christine Pfund , Ph.D. is a researcher with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). Dr. Pfund earned her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology, followed by post- doctoral research in Plant Pathology, both at University of Wisconsin- Madison. For almost a decade, Dr. Pfund served as the Associate Director of the Delta Program in Research, Teaching and Learning and the co- Director of the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching helping to train future faculty to become better more effective teachers. Chris is now conducting research with several programs across the UW campus including the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and the Center for Women's Health Research. Her work focuses on developing, implementing, documenting, and studying research mentor training interventions across science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM). Dr. Pfund co-authored the original Entering Mentoring curriculum and co-authored several papers documenting the effectiveness of this approach. Currently, Dr. Pfund is co- leading two studies focused on the impact of training on both mentors and mentees and understanding specific factors in mentoring relationships that account for positive student outcomes. Dr. Pfund is one of five principal investigators recently awarded a grant from NIH to establish a National Research Mentoring Network. Dr. Pfund will direct the National Mentor Training Core.

Dr. Pfund facilitated separate workshops for LA CaTS mentors and scholars designed to improve the effectiveness of the mentor-mentee relationship. This was attended by the Roadmap, Meritorious Post-doctoral and Pilot Grantees. Dr. Pfund also presented a plenary talk on 'Improving Effectiveness of Research Mentors'. This session was free and open to the entire New Orleans academic community and LA CaTS partner institutions. We are pleased to offer Dr. Pfund's plenary talk on the LA CaTS Website.

Watch the video