Each year the Professional Development Core selects qualified Scholars into the program. The Roadmap Scholars are junior faculty members whose goals are to become sustainable independent researchers. This year, in addition to a submitted application, Scholars were interviewed by all three Co-Directors and the Research Navigator. Please join us in welcoming the 11th Cohort of Roadmap Scholars: Michael Celestin, Jr, PhD, CHES, NCTTS (LSUH-NO), Jacob Mey, PhD, RD (Pennington), and Rhea Bhargava, MD (Tulane University).

All three Scholars began on July 1st and have enrolled in the Masters of Science in Clinical Research program. Dr. Celestin's project is titled "Promoting Implementation of Interventions to Improve Tobacco Cessation in Healthcare (PITCH) for Rural Populations" and his work focuses on improving the treatment of tobacco use in healthcare settings for rural populations. Dr. Mey's project is titled "Development of a Novel Protocol to Assess Ketogenic Therapies and Ketogenic Propensity" and will establish new methodology to elucidate the independent metabolic effects of increasing ketones, activating hepatic ketogen. Dr. Bhargava’s project is titled "Determining the role of aberrant glycosylation and lectin signaling in lupus nephritis" and she will reveal new treatment and diagnostic tools to identify individuals with SLE destined to develop LN and follow response to treatment. 

For further detail about each Scholar's project, please visit the following link on the Professional Development Core website: Roadmap Scholars Projects