Diversity Hub

UC San Francisco is one of 22 universities with Institutional Research and Career Development Award (IRACDA) programs funded by NIH/NIGMS. IRACDA Scholars receive mentored research and teaching training at major research institutions partnered with a teaching-intensive institution with a demonstrated commitment to outreach. UCSF's partner is San Francisco State University.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Training Program offers a summer clinical research training program for up to 15-20 undergraduate students, who are planning to attend dental, medical, nursing, pharmacy or physical therapy professional schools after graduation, and who have an interest in a career in clinical research. Students will be paired with a UCSF professional student who is enrolled in the Designing Clinical Research (DCR) course. The purpose of the course is to train students to evaluate the medical literature, to design clinical and translational research studies, and to encourage long-term collaborations between UCSF and undergraduate students.

Promoting Underrepresented Minorities Advancing in the Sciences (PUMAS) is a paid biomedical research internship program funded by an NIH/NHLBI grant. PUMAS aims to identify community college students from disadvantaged background who currently live in the Bay Area. During the program, PUMAS interns are paired with a scientific mentor and work on an individual research project in one of our laboratories. PUMAS interns work part-time (20–25 hours per week) over the course of 8-weeks and participate in a final poster session where they present their research findings to the scientific community here at Gladstone and UCSF.

The GAPA Foundation Scholarship provides financial assistance to API LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer) students who are in the process of applying to, or are currently attending, a post-secondary institution. The purpose of the GAPA Foundation Scholarship is to provide financial assistance to Asian and Pacific Islander (API) students in high school; undergraduate, graduate or professional school; or trade or vocational school who are interested in activism in the API and LGBTQ communities.

This grant mechanism provides support for senior fellows, instructors, assistant, associate and full professor faculty from historically disenfranchised racial and ethnic groups that are under-represented in health sciences, or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The goal is to encourage fellows and faculty from these groups to remain in academia as career professionals and thus to increase the diversity of our faculty. Research can be any area relevant to clinical and translational research which includes bench-to-bedside/laboratory-to-human (T1) translational research, clinical research and bedside-to-community/evidence-to-practice (T2/T3) research. Social, behavioral and economic research as it affects health is included. If not directly involving the study of people or populations, the proposed research must be clearly justified as being on the path to potential use in humans.

During the development of a research career, junior faculty need to focus intensively on their research for a critical period of time. Due to the demands of family care, faculty may struggle to keep up with an ambitious research agenda especially during and immediately after periods of more intense family caregiving. The funding will fill a gap in support for junior faculty with significant family caregiving responsibilities by providing funding for supplemental research support. Eligible faculty conducting clinical or translational research will complete a structured application describing the need for additional support, the value and goals of the research to be pursued, and how the funding will extend the current research program. The proposed research must be clearly justified as being on the path to potential use in humans.

PRIME hosts 4-5 health pipeline organizations to come and visit the UCSF campus during the summer. We have current partners that we invite, Mentoring in Medicine and Science, Huckleberry Youth Wellness Academy, San Francisco State Summer Science Institute, FACES for the Future. PRIME students work with the coordinators of the pipeline programs to develop a site visit that is in line with the interests of their programs. Some typical activities include a tour, a medical student panel, specimen/organ hands-on activity. Each program visits UCSF once for about 3 hours.

A collaboration among faculty, residents, students, and volunteers, UCSF's Community Dental Clinic has been working to improve the health of San Francisco's homeless population for the past decade. The philosophy of the Community Dental Clinic is to motivate patients to seek healthcare and to prevent dental disease through education and preventive dentistry. CDC is guided by three mutually supportive sets of aspirations: (1) For the clients- to provide oral health education and treatment. To achieve a positive impact on the lives of our patients; (2) For the students- to create a setting in which students can learn, teach, and practice clinical skills while cultivating sensitivity and comfort in interactions with the underserved population; and (3) For the Community- To use the Dental Clinic as a forum for education and health care service. To promote advocacy for the needs of the homeless population. Ultimately, we hope this experience will broaden our vision and make us more able and compassionate health care providers for any population we choose to serve.

The Innovators in Young Women's Health Program (Innovators) is a 10-month health and leadership training program which empowers young women to create a project that uniquely addresses young women's health needs specific to their school community. Innovators are hired by the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health. Innovators is based on a positive youth development approach that emphasizes each girl's strengths and / assets. Working in teams, students develop a project for their school and implement it with the assistance of an adult ally in the school (wellness center staff, nurse, teacher, etc.). Innovators concludes in May with a celebration during which each team presents their projects.

The Youth Steering Committee (YSC) is a young women's health and leadership program for a group of diverse high school girls from SF public and charter schools. The YSC works together for 9 months to explore young women's health issues and to create a health & leadership summit for other high school girls. The YSC is based on a positive youth development philosophy which emphasizes the strengths and assets of young women and encourages them to see themselves as leaders among their peers, within their schools, and throughout their community. The YSC is designed to be a safe place where young women can come together to share their thoughts and ideas, develop self-confidence, and build leadership skills.