Postdoctoral Fellow

The DIVERSE Network, a collaboration between Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA and Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, is seeking exceptional candidates to be part of the second Fellowship class in the American Heart Association Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) on the Science of Diversity in Clinical Trials.

The fellowship is part of a ground-breaking $20 million research project to study the barriers to ensuring people of diverse race and ethnicity are represented and included in clinical research trials, identify best practices to overcome those barriers and determine how solutions can be implemented across the research community that national teams of research scientists from 10 universities and health care systems will lead. The Strategically-Focused Research Network on the Science of Diversity in Clinical Trials of the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives, is funded in part by Pfizer and Gates Ventures.

Education:M.D. or Ph.D degree with backgrounds in medicine, public health, education, health informatics, or social sciences.

Experience: May have no more than five years of research training or experience since obtaining a post-baccalaureate doctoral-level degree (excluding clinical training).

Will be expected to devote at least 80 percent of full-time work either to research or to activities pursuant to independent research.

The Clinical Research Center (CRC) at Morehouse School of Medicine invites applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Fellow to support the Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) program, as highlighted by the DIVERSE Network at Stanford University and Morehouse School of Medicine. This program is dedicated to addressing barriers to representative enrollment and retention in cardiovascular clinical trials, training the next generation of leaders, and disseminating best practices to advance equity in cardiovascular research. The Postdoctoral Fellow will work under the mentorship of the Principal Investigator (PI) and a multidisciplinary team of investigators across the Department of Medicine and the Clinical Research Center. This position provides an opportunity to engage in impactful, data-driven research that advances cardiovascular health equity and clinical trial diversity. Fellows will work with world-renown researchers and educators from the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California and will be part of two large research studies to identify the best strategies for including people of diverse populations in clinical trials, focusing on African-American, Hispanic/LatinX, Asian/Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, women, LGBTQ+, 75 years or older, and participants with disabilities and dementia.

Key Responsibilities

The first study is comparing six different strategies in 112 different clinical trials randomizing at the site level across the country to determine which works best for different people. The second study works with doctors in communities to find what they and their patients need most to participate in clinical research trials.

Researchers will train community doctors to identify and remove barriers to health care access and to enroll people in research trials which can help their patients have access to the latest therapies. The instructions and resources developed for community doctors and hospitals will be made widely available to health care professionals outside the study area. Additionally, the team will form a network of leading pharmaceutical companies, technology companies and minority health care institutions to work together to make clinical trials more inclusive.

The fellowship will be led by Hannah Valantine, MD, Fatima Rodriguez, MD MPH, Pricilla Pemu, MBBS, MSGR, and Eldrin Lewis, MD MPH, who serves as the grant Center Director. The project leadership includes Melvin Echols, MD, Latha Palaniappan, MD MS, Paul Wang, MD, Anekwe Onwuanyi, MD, Muhammed Idris, PhD, Marcia L. Stefanick PhD, Muhammed Idris, PhD, Marcia Stefanick, PhD, Peter Poullos, MD, and VJ Periyakoil, MD.

The goal of the one or two-year fellowship is to train and develop the cardiovascular clinical research leaders of tomorrow. The training program will include an individualized development plan including mentorship, didactics, mentored research, and hands-on experiences in clinical trial design, operations, and execution. For candidates interested in academic careers, dedicated additional training is incorporated including clinical research conduct and leadership, grant writing, and core analytic/biostatistical skills, with mentorship from leaders in their fields at Morehouse and Stanford.

For investigators with interest/expertise in informatics/artificial intelligence there will be dedicated mentorship experiences in that area. Prior experience or interest in learning health informatics skills in clinical database queries (e.g., SQL), data standards (e.g., ICD, LOINC, OMOP), machine learning prediction model development and evaluation (e.g., ROC, precision-recall, cross-validation, and scientific programming in Python or R) will benefit specific project threads.

The program will integrate elements from Morehouse’s and Stanford’s broad and deep portfolio of academic offerings and provide the ability to audit academic courses and access resources at both institutions. A high level of academic output is expected to be a full-time fellowship. Fellows are positioned to be future leaders through comprehensive training and national and international collaborations.