Advising and Mentoring

CSTP Advisors

Dr. Amber Barnato will serve as a student's advisor in the CSTP. She will work closely with the student to identify a research mentor, and she will oversee the mentor-mentee relationship and the progress toward meeting CSTP requirements and student-defined annual goals and objectives. In July of the student's CSTP year, she will meet with the student to develop a schedule for completing coursework for the Certificate or Master of Science in Clinical Research.

Dr. Barnato will meet with each student semiannually. She will prepare annual progress reports evaluating each student's progress toward his or her specific goals and objectives in the CSTP and will share these reports with the dean of the School of Medicine.

CSTP Mentors

In the CSTP, Dr. Barnato works one-on-one with each CSTP student to identify potential mentors, based on the student's research interests. To search for faculty by research interest, use the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Faculty Research Interests Project. A student's research mentor in the CSTP must be a federally funded investigator.* To confirm that a faculty member has federal funding, search by name in the Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool Expenditures and Results (RePORTER).**

An optimal mentored clinical research experience is characterized by at least three features:

  • The valued input of an experienced and responsive mentor.
  • Involvement in an interesting research project that the student can take ownership of.
  • The opportunity to work as part of a multidisciplinary team that provides exposure to all phases of research: conception, design, grant writing, recruitment and consent, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of results.

Mentorship not only provides an opportunity for research collaboration and peer-reviewed publication, but it also contributes to a student's successful research career through career planning, role modeling, and professional networking. To maximize the mentor-mentee relationship, all CSTP students will participate in a structured, interactive half-day workshop with their mentors in June of MS-I. During that workshop, the student and mentor will work together to develop a mentoring "contract" to ensure that they have clear mutual understandings concerning their roles, responsibilities, and educational goals. The mentor-mentee contract is available here and should outline:

  • Expectations for the program and the mentoring experience.
  • Expectations regarding time commitments and the frequency of meetings.
  • Expectations regarding skills that will be developed.
  • Expectations regarding collaboration on research projects.
  • Commitment to the mentor-mentee relationship.

*The purpose of this criterion is to ensure that the mentor's research has undergone extensive and rigorous external scientific review.

**The database, maintained by the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), includes projects funded by the NIH, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH). Although investigators funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Defense also are eligible to be program mentors, these investigators are not searchable in the database.