Education

The CHLN educational activities continued with great success this year as we continued to implement initiatives launched in recent years. The backbone of our efforts continues to be our twice-monthly noon seminar series and our post-doctoral training program. Our noon seminars have evolved into an exciting mix of informal discussion of work-in-progress, presentations from our Center faculty and trainees that keep us apprised of Center research, panels of experts providing practical guidance for conducting research and stimulating invited talks from leading national experts.

Among the experts are our colleagues at the University of Colorado Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) which forms part of a broader collaboration between our research centers. Presentations this past year included topics such as “Implementation and Evaluation of Exercise is Medicine in the UC San Diego Health System” (Dr. Sarah Linke, University of California San Diego), “Diversity Supplements from the NIH: Our Experiences” (Drs. Megha Ramaswamy, Nikki Nollen and Taneisha Scheuerman from KU Medical Center), “Impact of Early Life Stress on Reward and Body Weight” (Dr. Rebecca Foright, a University of Kansas Medical Center and Center affiliated post-doc) and “Adolescent Bariatric Surgery: Health Outcomes and Ethical Issues for Youth

with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities” (Dr. Richard Boles, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and Colorado NORC colleague).

In addition to our noon seminar series, each year we are fortunate to invite a notable expert for our annual Kemper Healthy Lifestyles Lecture series. This year the presenter was Dr. Amy Eyler from Washington University in St. Louis who presented on, “Policies, Prevention, and Promoting Children’s Health.” In addition, as part of the University of Kansas Bohan Lecture series, we welcomed Dr. Paul Estabrooks from the University of Nebraska Medical Center

who presented on “Adaptation, Intervention Mapping and Translating Physical Activity and Weight Control Interventions in Clinical and Community Settings”. Next year we will be increasing our invitations to six to eight prominent experts around the country thanks to a successful application for speaking funding (through the Bohan lecture series) by Drs. Davis, Sullivan, and Donnelly (University of Kansas Medical Center).

In 2021, we continued see our post-doc program thrive in spite of the pandemic impact on applications and admissions. Our current post-docs, with the help of their mentors, excelled this past year. In addition to the numerous publications that are highlighted elsewhere in the report, several fellows submitted and/or received grants to support their work, including Dr. Paul Hibbing and Dr. Dana Bakula, who submitted training grant proposals to NIH, and Dr. Bethany Forseth, who was successful with a KL2 application that she declined in favor of an NIH-funded F32 that she was also awarded. Our faculty mentors and their mentees not funded by the Center have also achieved many notable successes (see the full list of publications and grants involving trainees) which also contributes enormously to the momentum of our educational efforts at the Center.

We are also continuing to strengthen our post-doc training program in two important areas. To continue to attract top applications and provide a clearer picture of the exciting opportunities of our program, we are working to revamp the information provided on our website and developing an even more coordinated post-doc experience. For prospective applicants, information on the website is one of the most important windows into our Center, so it is vital we provide a compelling picture of our current trainees, the resources and opportunities that are open to

post-docs, the support and training we provide and the research and successes of our training program. 

To enhance the quality of training, we have also been working with our current post-docs on developing a post-doc specific forum for professional development and camaraderie. Consistent with this goal, we have also been successful over the past year at engaging more post-docs who are working with Center faculty but who are funded through other sources and programs. Their engagement in our educational and social programming is enriching the experience of our center funded post-doc while our programming is providing enriched opportunities for all Center faculty member mentees.

With the steady growth and development of our post-doc program, it has become clear it would be beneficial to have a Fellowship Director, and we are delighted that Dr. Amanda Bruce (University of Kansas Medical Center) has agreed to take on this new leadership role. We believe the program will only go from strength to strength with a director who is able to provide dedicated oversight to the program and support to our post-docs, independent of the research mentorship teams. A final area of development has been attention to supporting the early careers of diverse candidates. We believe targeted support for diverse early career researchers will strengthen the research

programs of the center and ultimately enhance the quality and impact of research focused on children’s healthy lifestyles.

During 2021, we have been very fortunate to have support from our long-time benefactor, Sheila Kemper Dietrich, to establish the Kemper Diversity Child/Pediatric Postdoctoral two-year fellowship. In addition, we have established the CHLN diversity supplement to support the effort of graduate level trainees and/or postdoctoral fellows from diverse backgrounds. All CHLN center members are eligible to apply for these awards which offer $30,000 for one year. Lastly, in recognition of the significant barriers and systemic racism that certain individuals face in pursuing a scientific career, we have established the CHLN Diversity Fellowship Scholarship, an annual award of $10,000 to

highly meritorious fellows underrepresented in science and who are working with a CHLN member.

Our hope is that these funds will make the Center an attractive training ground for individuals from diverse/underserved backgrounds, help to develop a more diverse pipeline of talented new researchers and ultimately to improved healthy lifestyles for children of all backgrounds. This summary of some of the year’s most notable activities indicates that we continue to grow and thrive. We are clearly poised for even more progress in 2022.

Dr. Delwyn Catley