M-LEEAD: Career Development Program

Career Development Program

The Michigan Center on Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease (M-LEEaD) provides research support for training and mentorship of early stage investigators. These resources target investigators with specific skill sets that are consistent with the Center’s stated mission of promoting new translational research using novel multi-disciplinary approaches to better understand the impact of early environmental exposures on adult diseases.

History

During the Center’s initial year, one of our first Career Development activities was the appointment of Almudena Veiga-Lopez, DVM, PhD as Center Scientist. Dr. Veiga-Lopez became a Research Investigator with Vasantha Padmanabhan, PhD, leader of our Endocrine Disruptors Research Team. Her research was centered on understanding the fetal origin of pubertal and adult reproductive and metabolic disorders as well as the impact of native steroids in programming such defects. She is now an assistant professor at Michigan State University. Subsequently, Kelly Ferguson, PhD, and Jackie Goodrich, PhD, were appointed as Center Scientists, working with John Meeker, PhD, and with Dana Dolinoy, PhD, respectively. Kelly focused on environmental influences on low-birth weight outcomes and Jackie on metal exposures. Kelly is now a staff scientist at NIEHS in North Carolina.

Since renewal in 2016, we have selected Deborah Watkins, PhD and Lada Koneva, PhD as center scientists working with John Meeker and Maureen Sartor, respectively. Besides additional recourses and mentoring, center scientists establish a relationship with one of the M-LEEaD cores outside of their primary research area.

Under the renewal, the Career Development Program Leader Gil Omenn and Associate Director Laura Rozek continue to mentor early career investigators. In this past year Dr. Omenn worked with assistant professors Justin Colacino and Sue Hammoud as key investigators on a major proposal to the UM Data Science Institute for single-cell analyses of cancers and spermatogenesis; this proposal has been funded at $1.25M over 3 years. Jackie Goodrich is pursuing a resubmission of a proposal to NIOSH about metal exposures in foundry workers in collaboration with NIEHS-funded colleagues at Syracuse University and SUNY-Oswego.

In 2017, we welcomed Laura Rozek, a former mentee and now a tenured associate professor, as co-leader of the Career Development Program. Dr. Rozek and Dr. Omenn, together with Drs. Hannigan and Cote of the EHS CC at Wayne State University, organized their second joint networking workshop for Early Career Stage Investigators on May 31, 2017 in Ann Arbor, with excellent participation from both institutions. The highlight of this meeting was an advanced coaching session by Rena Seltzer. Rena Seltzer is president of the coaching and training business Leader Academic and author of The Coach’s Guide for Women Professors. The first joint Investigator Networking Workshop for early career stage investigators was held on October 6, 2016 in Detroit. Five new early career stage investigators joined our center: Sue Hammoud, Asst. Prof. Human Genetics and Urology, David Bridges, Assist. Prof. Nutritional Sciences, and Young Ah Seo, Assist. Prof. Nutritional Sciences, as full members; and Kelly Bakulski, Research Assist. Prof. Epidemiology, and Trish Koman, Research Investigator of Environmental Health Sciences, as associate members.

Program Initiatives

New enhancements to the career development program include increased opportunities to foster development of technical skills and collaborations with center members. Current initiatives include:

Increased recruitment of new investigators
Encouragement to utilize M-LEEaD Cores and participate in workshops and seminars
Customized mentorship of junior faculty/trainees, with grant preparation guidance from core leadership
Partnership with existing centers and campus resources relevant to the Center’s mission, including co-sponsorship of seminars and symposia
Archiving and reporting mentor/mentee “success stories” of career guidance, manuscript co-authorship, grants, etc
Development of a “pipeline” program that encourages scientific enrichment activities spanning K-12 education through post-doctoral study
Center sponsorship of selected workshops and training opportunities

Early Stage Faculty Success

Dana Dolinoy, PhD: Show more +; Dana Dolinoy, PhD, Associate Chair, Department of Nutritional Sciences, Associate Professor UM-EHS, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure on September 1, 2014. While an assistant professor, Dolinoy received formal mentoring from Peter Mancuso, her senior mentor in the UM-EHS. They met regularly to discuss career plans, strategies for success, opportunities, and any other topic of interest. Dolinoy was PI or Co-PI of several M-LEEaD pilot grants that provided support for successful grant applications. She received an NIEHS ONES R01 in 2009 and will submit its competing renewal in summer 2015. She was Project 1 PI in the NIEHS/EPA-funded P20 UM Children’s Environmental Health Center (2010-2014) and is Project 3 PI and Project 2 Co-I in the subsequent NIEHS/EPA-funded UM Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center (P01 ES022844). She is MPI (with M-LEEaD member Lozoff) of a newly funded grant (1R21ES025456-01) and expects NIEHS R13 funding for a Gordon Conference on mechanisms of toxicity. She has built a significant research program on perinatal and lifestage exposures to bisphenol A, mercury, lead, and phthalates utilizing mouse models and human samples.
Laura Rozek, PhD: Show more +; Laura Rozek, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of EHS, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in UM-EHS and became Associate Director, SPH Office of Global Public Health, in September 2014. While assistant professor, Rozek received formal mentoring from Thomas Robins, with regular meetings to discuss strategies for success, opportunities, and any other topic of interest. She was a collaborator on several M-LEEaD pilot projects that supported publications and grant applications. She is PI of grant 5R03CA167700-03 and MPI of grant 5R01CA158286-03 (with Sartor). Rozek led a project in the UM NCI-funded Head & Neck Cancer SPORE (completed). Her focus is interactions of genomic/epigenomic, environmental, and dietary factors in carcinogenesis in human populations. She has a major program on metals exposures in Thailand, involving several UM and many Thai students.
Maureen Sartor, PhD: Show more +; Maureen Sartor, PhD, was appointed Research Assistant Professor in Bioinformatics and in Biostatistics in 2009. She was promoted to Assistant Professor of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics (tenure track) in 2012 and becomes Associate Professor with tenure effective July 2015. Sartor is MPI (with Rozek) on grant 5R01CA158286-03, Co-I on an NIEHS ONES Grant with Dolinoy (5R01ES017524-05), and Co-I of the Data Management Core of the UM Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center (P01ES022844). Sartor has collaborated with M-LEEaD members Omenn, Richardson, Yung, Rozek, Dolinoy, Faulk, and Loch-Caruso on M-LEEaD preliminary pilot projects and publications.
Emily Somers, PhD: Show more +; Emily Somers, PhD, Associate Professor in Internal Medicine/Rheumatology and Obstetrics & Gynecology, has an NIEHS-funded K01 (ES019909-04) on genetic/epigenetic and environment interactions in systemic lupus erythematosus and is PI on the Michigan Lupus Epidemiology and Surveillance Program Longitudinal Cohort (5U01DP003250-02), a study with a strong environmental component.
Sung Kyun Park, ScD, MPH: Show more +; Sung Kyun Park, DSc, has a K01 award from NIEHS (ES016587-01A1). Initially recruited as a postdoctoral fellow with former M-LEEaD Director Howard Hu, Park was appointed subsequently as Assistant Professor (tenure track) in the Departments of Epidemiology and UM-EHS in 2010. Results from his M-LEEaD pilot project on multiple pollutant exposures and ovarian aging are preliminary support for an R01 grant application to NIEHS under review.
Richard Neitzel, PhD, MS, CIH, FAIHA: Show more +; Richard Neitzel, Associate Professor in UM-EHS, leads an EPA study and is PI of a foundation grant and subcontract to investigate noise interactions with dust and other chemical exposures in the workplace.
Toby Lewis, MD, MPH: Show more +; Toby Lewis, Associate Professor in Pediatrics & Communicable Diseases and UM-EHS, is completing her first NIH grant (R01ES016769-05) and, with critical support from M-LEEaD cores, obtained new preliminary data that led to the successful resubmission for her second NIH grant (R21Al114220-01A1).
Steven Huang, MD: Show more +; Steven Huang, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Medical School, Pulmonary/Critical Care, is PI of a M-LEEaD pilot project for a planned R01 grant submission. He has received guidance in experimental design and analysis from consultations with the M-LEEaD Integrated Health Sciences Core (Harlow) and the Omics and Bioinformatics Core (Sartor).
Masako Morishita, PhD: Show more +; Masako Morishita, PhD, Research Assistant Professor in UM-EHS, is an air pollution scientist. She is PI of her first NIH grant (1R01NR014484-01A1 for an air quality intervention study with M-LEEaD members Adar and Brook as collaborators. She is a core scientist in the M-LEEaD Exposure Assessment Core, providing analytical and study design services for assessment of exposure to metals and elements.
Justin Colacino, PhD: Show more +; Justin Colacino, PhD, was appointed Research Assistant Professor in UM-EHS in fall 2014. He is working on cancer stem cells with Max Wicha, the inaugural (now former) director of the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center and a pioneer in cancer stem cell biology, exploring environmental variables. Omenn, Rozek and Wicha have formed an M-LEEaD mentoring team for Colacino. Colacino applied for the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (not funded) and has several NIEHS R01 grants submitted investigating susceptibility of normal breast stem cells to environmental carcinogens.

Contact Information

To learn more about the M-LEEaD’s Career Development opportunities, please contact Program Leader, Dr. Gilbert Omenn or Co-Leader, Dr. Laura Rozek.