Before the start of the spring semester, CSUN Professor of Biology MariaElena Zavala was among the featured speakers at the Broadening Biomedical Research Workforce Participation Through Culturally Responsive Mentorship conference, held at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas, from January 15 to 17. The meeting, a capstone event for the National Research Mentoring Network, included presentations of research and panel discussions on efforts to make careers in biomedical research and technology widely accessible.
The meeting’s keynote speaker was Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., the Principal Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who retired from the NIH in early Feburary amidst disruptions of research funding and grant review, and dramatic staffing cuts, imposed on the NIH by the Trump Administration.