University of Southern California

One of CSULB BUILD’s Ph.D. Partners is the University of Southern California (USC). USC’s Dr. Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, serves on the External Advisory Board for CSULB BUILD and assists in facilitating all collaborative activities with Dr. Richard Watanabe, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Physiology & Biophysics, and Vice Chair for Education, Keck School of Medicine, and Dr. Thomas William Valente, Professor of Preventive Medicine  and Interim Chair of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine. Together they provide oversight and approval of BUILD collaborative activities at USC.

Our collaboration with USC includes a variety of activities summarized below.

Field Trips

2018 Field Trip to USC

USC has organized annual campus field trips for CSULB BUILD student trainees where they have the opportunity to learn about the interdisciplinary research being conducted in the Department of Preventive Medicine. They also learn about summer research training opportunities {LINK: https://viterbigradadmission.usc.edu/sure} and Ph.D. programs at USC, as well as receive career development advice.

Mentorship

As part of our collaboration, several USC faculty have signed on to become BUILD mentors for CSULB BUILD student trainees and also provide summer research training experiences for additional trainees. You can view USC mentor videos on our YouTube Channel.

Colloquia Series

Part of CSULB BUILD’s training program is a series of Colloquia held twice a semester. Faculty from USC have been featured speakers at several of them. Open to all faculty and students on campus, the series serves as a recruitment tool for new BUILD faculty mentors and BUILD students, as well as help facilitate networking research opportunities between USC faculty and CSULB faculty and students.

Workshops

USC has coordinated with our Research Resources and Training Coordinator to help identify instrumentation and research methodology expertise to provide CSULB BUILD-sponsored faculty and student research training workshops at USC.

Conferences

USC has regularly invited BUILD student trainees to participate in their Annual Diabetes & Obesity Research Institute (DORI) conference. In 2015, one BUILD student won a research award at this conference.