Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Office of Education and Training at the Miller School of Medicine is committed to creating a rich training environment to suit the needs of individuals across the continuum from early-stage students to faculty.
Our specific aims are to:
- Provide cancer research career enhancement across the continuum of students, trainees, faculty, and non-faculty healthcare professionals, through stage-specific scientific and professional development programs.
- Coordinate and monitor center-wide training activities and educational programs that facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary basic, clinical, translational, and population-based cancer research.
Our center wide trainee opportunities include the following:
- Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC) Trainee Membership
All trainees working in Cancer Center member labs are automatically included in the SCCC trainee membership program. Trainee members are high school, undergraduate, graduate, medical and medical students as well as those classified as postdocs as well as clinical residents and fellows working in oncology-related sub-specialties. UM scientists and researchers within 10 years of receiving their MD, PhD, or MD/PhD degrees who are working in SCCC member labs are also included as SCCC trainee members. Benefits of membership include travel awards, fee waivers to conferences and notices of events and opportunities of interest to trainees.
- Travel funding
A competitive process provides support to offset costs for trainees doing cancer related research in Sylvester member labs to attend national and international cancer relevant scientific conferences to present their work. To submit a travel funding request, apply here.
- Monthly Trainee Seminars at the Research Programs
Four research programs at Sylvester host monthly trainee seminars. The Cancer Control, Cancer Epigenetics, Translational and Clinical Oncology, and Tumor Biology research programs encourage trainees to present their research to faculty and other trainees at these monthly meetings where there is an opportunity to receive feedback and make connections with other researchers in their area of interest. View our events calendar for further details.
- Grant Writing Workshops for Mentored Grants
Access to archived SCCC sponsored grant writing workshop materials including videos can be found here.
- Career Talks
Have you have ever wanted to ask someone in industry about how you can transition from academia to industry? What career opportunities there are beyond research? How they advanced their career and what experience and skills it took to get there? What influences shaped their career? What would it take to impress their company’s hiring agent? View our events calendar for further details.
- Pipelines in Cancer Research
Oncology program leaders from the pharmaceutical/ biotechnology industry are invited to discuss promising projects and products in their oncology portfolios. The Career Talks by the leaders in pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries are scheduled immediately after the Pipelines lectures. View our events calendar for further details.
- Seminars and Lectures
Sylvester hosts approximately twenty large lectures a year that draw distinguished researchers in their fields to Sylvester. The Distinguished Lecture Series, the Distinguished Collaborations Series, the Podack Memorial Lecture and the Zubrod Memorial Lecture expose trainees to the best researchers in the arena of cancer research. To further enhance this experience, trainees are offered special opportunities to interact more closely with these innovative researchers through Q&A sessions with speakers and trainee lunches. For more information on these lectures and a list of current and past speakers, please see our conferences and seminars listing.
- Zubrod Trainee Poster Sessions
Trainees have the opportunity to participate in a trainee poster session and the opportunity to win prizes in the various categories of research. The four categories are clinical research, translational research, basic science research and population-based research. The posters and abstracts are reviewed by select faculty. Award letters, the cash prizes and plaques in the four categories are awarded on-stage at the Zubrod Memorial lecture on the same day as the poster session.
- Cancer Biology Training Consortium (CABTRAC)
Sylvester supports one to two trainees every year to travel to the CABTRAC annual meeting. University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is a member of CABTRAC and Sylvester’s Associate Director of Education and Training, Kerry Burnstein, PhD, was the 2017-2018 President for this national organization working closely with over 80 institutions as well as with the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Training Branch. For information on the purpose of the group and the annual meeting, please see http://cabtrac.org/
Other University sponsored SCCC trainee relevant activities include:
- Entrepreneurial Series
This series sponsored by UM’s Launch Pad will introduce you to entrepreneurship, which is defined as the transformation of innovation into an enterprise that generates value. You will also learn how The Launch Pad’s free resources can help turn your idea into a business. To find out more about The Launch Pad go to http://thelaunchpad.org/.
- Research Commercialization Fellowship
For advanced graduate and medical students at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (UMMSM). The fellowship is designed to identify and facilitate translation of innovative research conducted by UMMSM faculty and to provide UMMSM students with valuable training at the intersection of research and the business of life sciences. For more information go to https://innovation.miami.edu/education/rcf/index.html.
Contact the Office of Education and Training
Kerry L. Burnstein, Ph.D.
Associate Director, Education and Training Professor
Chair, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
Sarah Sandiford
Director, Research Support
Email: sls324@miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-2287
Vaughn Edelson
Director, Research Support (Faculty Development & K12)
Email: vte3@med.miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-1516
Adelina Garkova
Sr. Program Manager (T32 Training Grants)
Email: agarkova@miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-1557
Alexander Lupo
Sr. Program Manager (Cancer Biology Graduate Program)
Email: axl4264@med.miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-1413
Rositsa Kalinova
Sr. Program Manager (Special Events)
Email: rik12@med.miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-1539