Grant supporting diversity of research teams awarded to Nursing faculty member

Dr. Rosario Jaime-Lara, PhD, RN, assistant professor in the UCLA School of Nursing, is collaborating with a research team at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine led by Dr. Arpana Gupta, the principal investigator of an ongoing project exploring how the stressors of social isolation and discrimination are related to eating behaviors and dietary patterns in women of Mexican and Filipino Heritage.

As part of this two-year collaborative project, Dr. Jaime-Lara will be mentored by Dr. Gupta and will lead a study examining stressors and eating behavior from the perspectives of Mexican-American women. Dr. Jaime-Lara will also be mentored by Dr. MarySue Heilemann and Dr. Lauren Clark from the School of Nursing. This collaborative project has been funded by a grant from the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities.

The two-year $250,000 diversity supplement, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is intended to improve diversity within the research workforce by supporting investigators from diverse backgrounds.

“As an early career investigator this grant offers mentorship, training, research time, and funding to build my program of research which focuses on the underlying biological mechanisms and socio-environmental factors influencing eating behavior, nutrition, and health in Latinx communities,” Jaime-Lara said. 

According to its website, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) believes that new investigators are the innovators of the future who bring fresh ideas and technologies to existing biomedical research problems, and they pioneer new areas of investigation. NIMHD views the supplement program as an opportunity to contribute to the new investigator cohort.