The Initiative for Maximizing Student Development at Brown University (IMSD@Brown) provides research training support for students in underrepresented groups to significantly increase the participation of these groups within the fields of biomedical, behavioral and physical sciences. IMSD@Brown strives for Community, Collaboration, and Excellence in an innovative interactive learning environment. Participants are identified from incoming and early stage PhD cohorts spanning 22 graduate programs across the University.
Trainees receives a unique advising plan and support structure, continuing throughout their graduate career at Brown. Skill- based training modules are designed to foster academic achievement and personal success in graduate school. These training modules focus on areas such as scientific writing, demystifying the PhD experience, statistical analysis of data, and designing and delivering scientific presentations; areas that may not have been fully developed at undergraduate institutions. Modules are open to other graduate students, as necessary, to not only enhance the training environment of the direct participants, but also to impact the entire Graduate community.
IMSD@Brown program has also established formal partnerships with several Minority-Serving Institutions to encourage and increase opportunities for minority students in biology and public health graduate training fields and to promote graduate student development across the Brown campus. Through these multiple strategies, IMSD@Brown seeks to build leverage in order to achieve success with participants reaching their full potential at the end of their graduate career. The program is funded by grant T32GM144926 (previously R25GM083270) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health since April 2008.
