Student Affairs -- Research Opportunities

TUSOM students have plenty of opportunities available for getting involved in research. Finding a project to match your interests and the time which you can commit may take some initial legwork, but once you find a project which intrigues you, the rewards are many. Use the resources below and along the side of this page to learn about what research is currently happening at Tulane, and who to contact to become involved.

Students interested in basic/bench research should contact Dr. Diane Blake for more information.

More information on research conducted in these areas can be found here.

Student must watch the following video prior to seeking a clinical/translational research opportunity

Students interested in clinical/translational research should contact Dr. Vivian Fonseca for more information.

More information on research conducted in these areas can be found here. A list of recommended faculty mentors and their areas of research is also available here. 

Students interested in The DeBakey Scholar Program should contact Dr. Kenneth Mitchell for more information.

More information on this program can be found here.

Students interested in the Ph.D./MD program should contact Dr. James Robinson for more information.

More information on this program can be found here.

Students interested in population and public health research should contact Dr. Tonette Krousel-Wood for more information.

More information on research conducted in these areas can be found here.

If you are interested in completing the MD/MPH program, more information can be found here. 

• Anesthesiology – Contact primary researcher; see research page
• Dermatology -- Opportunities for students to get involved in research are available, including clinical trails, research with residents, and student-initiated studies. Please contact the department for more information: Dr. Andrea Murina , Dr. Laura Williams, Dr. Brittany Stumpf
• Emergency Medicine -- There are several different research opportunities, including basic science, clinical and social science research. Contact our Research Director, Dr. Lisa Moreno-Walton, for more information.
• Family Medicine -- Contact either Dr. Rade Pejic or Dr. Kiernan Smith for information about current opportunities to get involved with research.
• Internal Medicine -- We have over 100 faculty in the department of medicine, and there are research opportunities available in most areas. One way to find out about research in the department and to make some contacts is to attend our research conference. These are held the 3rd Monday of the month at noon in the 7th floor library (room 7001) of the School of Medicine building.
• Neurology -- To learn about recent research conducted in neurology, click here . Please contact Dr. Roger Kelley for more information on how to get involved.
• Neurosurgery -- There are laboratory opportunities with Dr. Dumont , working on an animal model of aneurysm formation and rupture. There are also various clinical projects ongoing at different times. Currently, there is a project evaluating different technologies for the endovascular treatment of acute ischemic stroke.
• Obstetrics and Gynecology -- Students are encouraged to directly email faculty with whom they would like to work.
• Ophthalmology -- Please contact Dr. Delmar Caldwell for more information about research opportunities in ophthalmology.
• Orthopaedics -- The Orthopaedics Department has numerous research opportunities, including in clinical, basic science, biomechanical, and education related studies. They hold research meetings about every six weeks and any students interested in orthopaedics are welcome to attend. Students can find out about dates through the Orthopaedics Interest Group. They are strongly encouraged to join, as this group will provide them with a lot of information about orthopaedics. Additionally, Erica Moore (Residency Coordinator) can share this information with students.
• Otolaryngology -- The Department of Otolaryngology has research opportunities in health care disparities, health care delivery, rhinology and oncology available. Please contact Dr. Paul Friedlander for more information.
• Pathology -- To learn more about research opportunities in pathology, contact Bea Delucca, Dr. Skrikanta Dash, Dr. Erik Flemington, Dr. Gilbert Morris, or Dr. Tong Wu.
• Pediatrics -- For research opportunities, please contact the Vice Chair for Pediatric Research, Dr. Stacy Drury .
• Psychiatry -- There are multiple areas of research occurring within the Department of Psychiatry including: Infant Mental Health – the effects from neglect and deprivation, Collaborative care models, Genetics – the effects on DNA from stress and trauma, Schizophrenia and outcomes with first-episode psychosis intervention, PTSD in children and the best treatment modalities, PTSD and family therapy. There is a research webpage where details on how to get involved can be accessed.
• Radiology -- For research opportunities, please contact the Vice Chair for Education in Radiology, Dr. Jeremy Nguyen.
• Surgery -- The Surgery Department focuses research on Minimally Invasive Surgery, Robotic Surgery, Surgical Education, Endocrinology, Oncology, Transplant, and Trauma. Call Tulane Surgery Education Department (504.988.7123) for more information.
• Urology -- Our faculty is a very productive one – both in basic sciences and clinical research projects. Each faculty member can be approached individually, so as to filter out what would best suit one’s requirements and career goals

This section contains contact information SPECIFICALLY seeking student researchers. If you are a faculty researcher who would like to advertise for a student researcher, please email Dr. Katrina D’Aquin.

• Hi all- 

   

  Reaching out about a new research opportunity. PI background and study description below. If you are interested please email Dr. Angelina Dixon (Gina) at adixon5@tulane.edu. 

   

  Gina is a 4th year combined resident in internal medicine and pediatrics, interested in pursuing a career in nephrology. After completing her residency at the end of the coming academic year, she will serve as Chief resident in pediatrics at Tulane before applying to fellowship in nephrology.

   

  The study is called Music Therapy and Dialysis: A Pilot Investigation into the Effectiveness of Patient-Selected Music Interventions on Physiological, Psychological, and Quality-of-Life Outcomes.

   

  The objective of this study is to determine the effect of music therapy during dialysis on: depression, anxiety, quality of life, blood pressure, heart rate, medication compliance, compliance with dialysis treatment, number of hospitalizations, pain level, and energy level.

   

  Music therapy will be administered weekly for a total of 12 weeks to the experimental group. The above variables will be evaluated in both the experimental and control groups using surveys. I am looking for one or more medical students or undergraduate students to complete these surveys with the control group patients at DCI on Canal Street (adult hemodialysis patients). The surveys would need to be administered weekly to two separate cohorts of patients, for 12 weeks. This should take approximately 1-1.5 hours, twice a week, for 12 weeks. After completion of the study, the surveys would need to be completed again (once) 30-, 60-, and 90- days after completion of the study.

   

  Best,

  Emily  Kazarinoff (ekazarinoff@tulane.edu) 

• Tulane students,

   

  My name is Charles Santos and I am a second year combined resident in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry here at Tulane. Involved in this project are Internal Medicine, IM-Peds, Psychiatry folks here at Tulane, both residents and attending. I am working on a project to expand access to medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder (addiction) at the Tulane Internal Medicine residents clinic. We are hoping to collect both clinical data on patient outcomes and resident educational data. We will want to create a paper at some point for publication, maybe two or more depending on what data we can get. 

   

  I am wondering if this is something a Tulane med student would be interested in getting involved. Ideally it would be someone with time, earlier in medical school, with an interest in either IM, Psych, IM-Psych, Med-Peds, FM, EM, medical education, addiction, working with the underserved, etc. 

   

  Tasks would be pretty broad, but include helping with IRB, recruitment, data tracking, analysis, and drafting of the manuscript eventually. I am willing to offer mentorship at the bare minimum, additionally this person would learn a lot about the research process, addiction treatment, med ed, connection to other cool projects in the city, and name on a paper eventually. For the main two papers it would likely not be first, but there is plenty of room to develop a smaller project within the larger one if someone was creative and wanted a first authorship paper. 

   

  Please contact me here if you have any interest. Please include your research experience and interest in this topic (does not have to be extensive). Let me know if you have questions.

   

  Thanks,

  Charlie   csantos3@tulane.edu

   

• The Emergency Medicine Residents' Association (EMRA) is holding a case contest for interesting emergency medicine cases. This is open to both medical students and residents and would give you a great excuse to travel to Denver, Colorado to attend ACEP, one of the largest EM conferences in the country. If you're interested, please see the link below for more details. The deadline for submissons is July 31st.  https://www.emra.org/be-involved/events--activities/case-con/

• Greetings from the University of Florida-

  As a faculty member of the University of Florida, one of the sponsoring institutions that facilitate this multi-institutional event (in conjunction with Boston Children’s, NIH, SPR and Florida AAP), I am proud to share this exciting medical student opportunity with my peers and the medical students within their institutions. The 6^th Annual Pediatric Research Forum for Medical Students is an exciting opportunity for students to share their research with other students from all over the country in an encouraging format. This annual event takes place Saturday, August 31^st, 2019 at the Disney’s Yacht Club Resort in Orlando, Florida. This opportunity is open to all medical students and takes place in conjunction with the annual meeting of the FL Chapter of AAP. There was a great turnout last year with over 100 medical student projects accepted for oral and poster presentations from across the nation. I encourage you to send this email to medical students at your institution that are involved in pediatric research or pediatric related scholarly projects even in their infancy stages. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to present their findings in an encouraging atmosphere among other medical students and pediatric clinician scientists for encouraging feedback at a wonderful, sunny location. Please see the details in link below and forward to medical students interested in pediatrics within your institution. Abstract deadline 7/12/19. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

  https://pediatrics.med.ufl.edu/pediatric-medical-student-research-forum/

  Sincerely-

  Maureen Novak, MD

   

• Application Cycle Opens for HHMI Medical Research Fellows Program

  The Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Application System is open for applications to the Janelia Graduate Research Fellows Program. The opportunity enables students at U.S. medical schools to participate in a yearlong mentored, basic biomedical research training experience at the Janelia Research Campus, located just outside Washington, D.C. The application deadline is July 18, 2019.

   

  Erik Lee Snapp, Ph.D.

  Director of Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs

   

• Dr. Chakraborti in Internal Medicine is looking for students to assist with the following medical education projects (with a strong possibility of publication/presentation):

  • Residency website quality project - develop and apply a tool to assess how helpful residency websites actually are at providing information and (more importantly) helping applicants determine “fit”. Can take several students going into all different fields, which will spread out the work. Expected outcome: posters, presentations, manuscript
  • Diversity in clinical trials - examine how diverse the patient populations within clinical trials are. Expected outcome: manuscript
  • “So you are about to start your AI/sub-I” project - develop a toolkit of skills in anticipation of performing as an intern (not specific to Internal Medicine). Expected outcome: posters, presentations
  • If you are interested, please contact him directly at cchakrab@tulane.edu

• EM Research Opportunity: 

  • All rising T2s considering Emergency Medicine,

    My name is Austin and I am a fourth year MD/PhD pursuing EM. 

    From the match panel earlier this month, some of you expressed interest in getting involved with EM research but difficulty getting a foot in the door at LSU.

    Dr. Moreno-Walton is the Director of Research for LSU Emergency Medicine and the President-Elect of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. She started the country’s first emergency department hepatitis C screening program here at LSU. 

    We currently have an ongoing research project evaluating the effectiveness of this hepatitis C screening program at connecting patients to treatment. It has produced numerous award-winning abstracts and will be submitted for publication within the next year.

    We’re looking to include additional researchers, especially those with availability this summer. Contact me if you are interested and we’ll get you set up!

    Austin T. Jones

    Tulane University School of Medicine
    Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
    ajones32@tulane.edu | 310.989.8906

• We would like to share with you a one‐year research opportunity that may be of interest to
  your 2nd or 3rd year medical students who are contemplating a career in dermatology.
  Specifically, the Division of Dermatologic Surgery, Department of Dermatology at Northwestern
  University has an opening for a gap year research fellow from July 2019‐June 2020. During this
  mentored research year, students learn to apply the methods of clinical research in order to
  complete several individual research projects pertaining to skin cancer and skin surgery. While
  the position is unpaid, gap year students are supported to attend national meetings to present
  their work, and are also provided appropriate training. All gap year students completing this
  program during the past 10 years have been successful in matching in dermatology residency.
  I am the primary mentor for the gap year student at Northwestern Dermatologic Surgery.
  For more details about the program and application, interested students should email Dr. Emily
  Poon, PhD, Director of Clinical Research, Division of Dermatologic Surgery, Department of
  Dermatology (Emily.poon@northwestern.edu).
  Thank you very much for apprising your students of this opportunity

• All of Us Research Study: Tulane University has been selected to be a site for the All of Us research study. This multi-site, five-year NIH study will recruit a million patients, the largest ever proposed! Students who want to participate will need to complete CITI training, and will receive basic training in research practices and customer service. There will be no opportunity to collaborate on a paper for involvement, but students will be able to add this experience to their CV, highlighting the unique nature of the largest NIH study to date. If you are interested, please contact Roberta McDuffie to arrange for an interview.

• Data Entry: 
  

  We are currently in need of 3-4 T4 students to do some data extraction work for our annual quality data submission to CMS.  

  The work can be done on their free time and we will pay the going rate for students, about $12.25/hr.  It should take about 20-30 hours each over a two-week period.  Anyone interested, they can send me an email directly. 

  Thanks in advance and let me know if you have any questions. 

  Tim Harlan MD

  tharlan@tulane.edu

• McSwain Trauma Group: If you’re interested in getting involved in research, keep reading! I am looking for 3 students to help data collect for a project I am working on with the McSwain Trauma Group. The research pertains to sleep hygiene protocols in the ICU. The data collection will need to take place in person in the Tulane ICU. The goal will be to have 3 students rotating weekly for a few weeks, so the time commitment will be minimal. Also, we will show you everything you need to know about the data collection process and will get you access to Meditech. No experience necessary! We will start data collecting in the very near future as this project is already ongoing. Please email me if you would like to get involved or would like more information! This is a great way to get involved in research if you have been looking to do so! And the McSwain Trauma Research Group is a great group to be a part of. Contact Caitlin Cook.

• Mechanisms of Lung Disease Related to Environmental Exposures: I have an interest in a medical student joining my laboratory. My research interests are mechanisms of lung disease related to environmental exposures. More detailed information can be gathered from my website in the Pathology Department. Contact Dr. Gil Morris .

• Tulane Center for Autism & Related Disorders :We constantly have the need for data entry assistance. We have an extremely large database that we need updating on a weekly basis, which holds the data form our diagnostic evaluations that are completed on patients coming to the center. We have 2 other projects that we have been trying to get off the ground, but have not finished the IRB submissions. One is on the benefits (health and social) of learning how to ride a bicycle in children/adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Bike riding is a skill that is significantly delayed if ever even learned in children with ASD, but there is some qualitative research that suggests bike riding increases overall functioning in activities of daily living, social, and health domains. The second is a comparison of improvement in speech/language skills in very young children depending on the setting of the intervention (i.e., home, school, clinic). Contact Dr. Lisa Settles .

• The AAMC maintains a database including both funded and unfunded clinical and research experiences, which can last for the summer or throughout a year.

• The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine is accepting applications for the Orthopaedic Surgery Research Fellowship.  There are  5 positions available for the 2019-2020 academic year.  The ideal candidate is one looking to take time off between their 3rd and 4th years of medical school to enhance their exposure to the field of Orthopaedic Surgery.  Past fellows average 8-12 publications from the fellowship.  Details regarding this fellowship can be found at: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/orthopaedics/education/fellowships/research. 
• The AAMC maintains a database including both funded and unfunded clinical and research experiences, which can last for the summer or throughout a year.
• The Warren R. Bourgeois, III, MD and Usha Ramadhyani Bourgeois, MD Student Research Endowed Fund is a generous endowment which provides support each year to one or two first year medical students for a summer research experience in the Department of Physiology. The donation provides, but is not limited to, stipends, grants, and assistance with conference attendance, travel and other expenses related to the recipients’ research experience. This research experience for medical students brings to the student a potential dual career in research as well as medicine. It reveals to the student they can be involved both in the healing of a patient and in the process of finding cures. For more information, please contact Dr. L. Gabriel Navar, Professor and Chairman, Department of Physiology, SL-8639, 504.988.5251.
• The DeBakey Scholars Program offers medical students the opportunity to pursue and complete a longitudinal structured, closely supervised research experience culminating in a capstone presentation prior to graduation. Limited summer funding is available for projects and students who qualify. More information on this program can be found here.

Many professional societies provide competitive grant funding for research. The links below should take you directly to the grant pages for the societies listed:

• Administration for Community Living
• American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
• Amercian Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
• American Academy of Dermatology
• American Academy of Neurology
• American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
• American Association of Neurological Surgeons
• Rheumatology Research Foundation
• American Heart Association
• American Psychiatric Association
• American Roetgen Ray Society
• American Society for Dermatologic Surgery
• American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
• Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research
• American Society of Clinical Oncology
• The Plastic Surgery Foundation
• American Thoracic Society
• American Urological Association
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• College of American Pathologists
• Endocrine Society
• National Cancer Institute
• National Eye Institute
• National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
• National Hemophilia Foundation
• National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
• National Institutes of Health
• National Institute on Aging
• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
• National Organization for Rare Disorders
• Radiological Society of North America
• Society for Investigative Dermatology
• The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
• American Physician Scientists Association

A helpful resource when writing grant applications is the "How to Apply" guide by the NIH. You can link into this resource here. 

Wondering where you can present your research? Click on our calendar of professional conferences to see when a relevant conference may be happening! (Links to conference information are provided.)

Additionally, see our Student Publication Venue guide for inspiration on where to publish. 

• Tulane Faculty & Research Database NOTE: Link only works when connected through Tulane internet.
• Tulane University Office of Research
• Matas Library
• Resources for Researchers