Research Training Support and Additional Resources

Trainees are expected to meet in person with the Program Coordinator as early as possible in their appointment, and ideally before their appointment begins.  When questions arise, or documentation must be filed, trainees are strongly encouraged to use email and electronic or scanned documents whenever possible.

The Program Coordinator can answer questions regarding applications, renewal of funding, meetings and events, as well as assist in contacting faculty and other trainees.  The Program Coordinator should receive and will maintain all documentation of completion of training program requirements, and oversees maintenance of current and former trainee records for all preceptors. Additionally, the Program Coordinator initiates and maintains trainees' appointments with the National Institutes of Health, as well as facilitates all payments and reimbursements related to the training program.
  
The Division also processes all hospital and Medical School appointments for the trainees employed at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Trainees funded by this program have access to funds for tuition, travel to conferences, and other training related expenses.  With sufficient advance notice, some expenses can be paid directly from this grant.  Other expenses are reimbursed directly to the trainee, or to their laboratory, as appropriate.  Trainees are advised to obtain pre-approval through the Program Coordinator for expenses for which they will request reimbursement.

For reimbursement of approved expenses, trainees should collect all receipts and proof of payment (such as copies of credit card statements showing the expenses) and submit to the division for disbursement of funds.

Trainees are advised to take personal responsibility for obtaining the support and mentoring that they need, for example by making sure that they schedule appropriate meetings with their mentors.  In addition to each trainee's faculty mentor(s), there are also several other individuals who are available to provide support to trainees in this program.  For guidance on required and recommended meetings with mentors and others, please see the appropriate training requirements page, linked from the Research Training Program main page. 

The Training Coordinator, to be announced, initiates most of the mentoring training activities for this Training Program, and has a strong background in developing mentoring plans for post-doctoral trainees in conjunction with FASEB.  The Training Coordinator assists with all 'community of trainees' activities, such as the quarterly administrative and career meetings of all trainees.  All trainees are required to write a grant application within their first year (typically an individual NRSA or equivalent application providing at a minimum the NRSA level of salary support) and the Training Coordinator is available to all trainees to help with scientific and mentoring related issues, identification of funding opportunities and development of grant applications (in addition to the trainee's primary mentor and any co-mentor).

Steven W. Lockley, PhD, is the Director of the Circadian Physiology Program, which focuses on basic and applied aspects of human circadian biology. Our translational approach includes use of a range of techniques including epidemiology, field-based physiological studies and inpatient intensive physiological monitoring and focuses on human circadian photoreception and the effects of light on the circadian pacemaker and other non-image forming responses. Studies include investigations of the effects of timing, duration, intensity and wavelength of light exposure on circadian resetting, melatonin suppression and the acute alerting effects of light. Their work also includes a series of applied lighting interventions to improve circadian rhythms, sleep and performance on the International Space Station and other NASA analogs, care homes, hospitals, and offices. This work is also being translated into architectural lighting design approaches and lighting standards. They study visually impaired individuals under field and laboratory conditions to examine the effects of the severity and type of blindness on circadian photoreception, the periodicity of the circadian pacemaker and development of circadian rhythm sleep disorders, which led to the development of novel therapeutic strategies to treat non-24- hour sleep wake disorder in the blind, as well as other health risks such as breast cancer. They also conduct field and laboratory studies to assess the wider impact of circadian rhythms on a range of physiological systems including immune response, bone metabolism, reproductive function, liver function and lipid and glucose regulation, and are examining these systems in shiftwork and dementia. They are actively identifying and validating a series of biomarkers to measure circadian phase and sleepiness under real-world conditions including lipidomics, metabolomics and urinomics and assessing other real-time circadian assessment technologies.

Stefanos N. Kales, MD, MPH, is the Program Director of the Occupational & Environmental Medicine Residency Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  He is Board Certified in Preventive Medicine: Occupational Medicine, and has been elected to Fellowship by both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine. Dr. Kales is the Chief of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Medical Director for Employee Health and Industrial Medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard-affiliated hospital system. He is also an occupational medicine consultant to the Massachusetts/Rhode Island Poison Control Center. Dr. Kales has participated in a wide range of research, advisory, and teaching activities on five continents resulting in over 190 publications and wide recognition nationally and internationally. He also serves on several editorial boards, including Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health and the international advisory board of Occupational Medicine, London.

Dr. Stuart F. Quan, MD, is the Gerald McGinnis Professor of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Senior Physician in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Sleep and Health Education Program for the Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine. The Sleep and Health Education Program is an educational tool that provides a valuable resource for disseminating knowledge to the public, and is also a very useful resource for trainees who are interested in public outreach. Dr. Quan, who is the former President of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and who chaired the American Board of Internal Medicine Committee that developed the examination for Board Certification in Sleep Medicine, supports our trainees in their early career stages by providing senior mentorship and guidance. 

Joseph M. Ronda, MS, Director of Information Systems for the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital, is responsible for developing and supporting the use of computers as tools in medical research.  Mr. Ronda assists with the computer needs of the trainees with respect to both on-line data collection and analysis.

The Chair of the Curriculum Development Sub-committee, Frank A.J.L. Scheer, MSc, PhD, serves as or assigns another Preceptor to serve as an independent advisor to each incoming trainee.  In collaboration with the other members of this committee, Dr. Scheer or the trainee's assigned advisor develops and makes recommendations regarding appropriate laboratory placement of trainees as necessary, and conducts the annual review of core requirements and elective courses.

Wei Wang, PhD, Biostatistician at Brigham & Women's Hospital and Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is responsible for courses in statistical analysis directly related to research questions being encountered by fellows in their patient-oriented applied research, and is available to assist each trainee in statistical considerations in the design and interpretation of experiments and the resulting data analyses.

In addition to these resources and information, links to other resources can be found in the Resources section of this site.  In particular, trainees may find useful:

• Career Development resources
• Training Resources
• Individual Funding Applications help