Outreach & Events

Research Day is an annual event showcasing research, creativity, and innovation across academic disciplines in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. It highlights the prestigious research and creative work conducted by our faculty, trainees, students, and staff. Research Day celebrates academic excellence by giving the campus community the opportunity to come together and exchange scholarly activities, share new ideas, and allow for engagement among peers. The program will feature a plenary session, poster session, and breakout poster discussion sessions in Basic Research, Health Services Research and Clinical Translational Research.

UCLA and Caltech jointly hosted the NIH Joint Meeting on September 21^st at the Annenberg Building at Caltech. The purpose of this symposium was to facilitate collaboration and communication between institutions, with a focus on training the next generation of diverse biomedical engineers and scientists to bridge engineering and medicine. Both the senior T32 scholars and mentors delivered the oral presentations. A senior T32 shared his experience in NIH K99 application, and another her experience as a scientific leader in a start-up funded by the Caltech professor. Other T32 scholars presented the posters to connect with the faculty. Both the up-and-comping and senior faculty were engaging with the T32 scholars to discuss research and career development. The next Caltech/UCLA symposium will be held at UCLA in collaboration with the AHA iDIVERSE Center in Spring 2024.

About the conference: The Biomechanics in Vascular Biology and Disease GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.

This GRC will bring together engineers, biologists, and clinicians who study biomechanics in cardiovascular biology and disease. This GRC meeting will significantly broaden and consolidate smaller scale symposium activities in Biomechanics and Cardiovascular Disease that our biomechanics community has held in Europe and North America since 2005. Leaders and diverse groups representing women and underrepresented investigators, from trainees to young and established faculty members, will have opportunities to present and network at the Meeting. Speakers for the Early-Career Investigators Session will be selected from submitted abstracts. In addition, poster sessions will be led by the leaders to feature “Meet the Young Investigators” to facilitate networking. To promote inclusion and diversity and to address the challenges facing women and underrepresented groups in STEM, the GRC Power Hour Session will be led by our rising leader, Dr. Eno Ebong, who will lead the forum.

Date: August 6 – 11, 2023

Location: Mount Holyoke College, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA, United States

For more information, please check this website: https://www.grc.org/biomechanics-in-vascular-biology-and-disease-conference/2023/

On April 17th, UCLA and CalTech put on the AHA iDIVERSE & NIH T32 Joint Symposium on “Translating Interdisciplinary Research to Ameliorate Cardiometabolic Disorders.” We heard from esteemed speakers who shared cutting-edge research on cardiovascular disease mechanisms and innovative engineering solutions for managing cardiometabolic risk factors. The poster presentations by the NIH iTEAM T32 scholars were inspiring, showcasing their novel research findings at the intersection of diversity, engineering, and medicine. The symposium provided a unique platform for networking, collaboration, and knowledge sharing among experts in the field. The Q&A sessions, discussions, and interactions were invaluable, fostering interdisciplinary connections and potential collaborations. Thank you to the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their support and shoutout to our amazing team who worked hard to put on this event. We are grateful to all the attendees for their active participation and contribution to the success of the symposium.

AHA iDIVERSE & NIH T32 Joint Symposium

Translating Interdisciplinary Research to Ameliorate Cardiometabolic Disorders