TRAINING PROGRAMS

The HIV Center has a long history of training the next generation of investigators in the behavioral aspects of HIV research. Our current programs serve undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral trainees.

Since 1989, our NIMH-supported Behavioral Sciences Research Training Program in HIV Infection has provided postdoctoral training for approximately 50 fellows, with an emphasis on the recruitment of minority trainees. Recognizing the increasing need for HIV behavioral researchers with expertise in the science of sexuality and gender, Program Director Anke A. Ehrhardt and Training Director Theo Sandfort have now focused the training program on state-of-the-art, intensive theoretical and methodological training in human sexuality research with an emphasis on applied problems in HIV prevention. Fellows also are given the opportunity to earn a Master's of Public Health degree in Biostatistics at Columbia.

Building on its successful program to train community-based providers in the fundamentals of human sexuality research (the STAR Program), the HIV Center has initiated a similar training program (MOSAIC) for undergraduate students from four New York City colleges with a grant from the Ford Foundation (Lucia O'Sullivan and Kimberly Hearn). These students spend time at the HIV Center during two semesters, receiving independent study credit from their home institutions, attending didactic sessions, and being mentored in the research process by HIV Center scientists.

The HIV Center has also been a training site for Fogarty International Center fellows from South Africa, Minority Investigators supported by NIMH supplements, Aaron Diamond Foundation Postdoctoral Fellows, Social Science Research Council Sexuality Research Fellows, and Visiting Scientists from around the world. In addition, the Center provides training for psychology interns, medical students, graduate students, psychiatry residents, and other fellows from the Columbia University Health Sciences Campus.