Short-Term Research In Vision & Eye Health (STRIVE) Summer 2023 Internship Program

Program Overview:

The National Institute of Health (NIH)/National Eye Institute (NEI) has funded the Short-Term Research In Vision & Eye Health (STRIVE) Program which aims to train qualified medical students who have an interest in ophthalmology and vision research, as well as improve diversity in the workforce. This would be the first and only summer medical student research training program at UC San Diego (UCSD) focused on ophthalmology, vision research, and eye health. This program is specifically tailored to medical students who have some clinical knowledge and academic interest, but who may not have extensive prior research experience.

The program will provide full-time research and clinical support for 8-12 consecutive weeks at UC San Diego during the summer for 4 qualifying medical students per year from across the country. The program will include hands-on research experience, career development, and long-term mentorship. The multi-disciplinary research training experience will also include instruction in areas such as biostatistics, research ethics, and leadership skills. There will be an opportunity at the summer research symposium for the trainees to present their work. The trainees will be able to collaborate with mentors to develop their work for presentations at national conferences.

This is a paid internship, with monthly stipends ranging from about $2200 per month for predoctoral interns.

Curriculum Highlights:

Faculty:

Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology and Shiley Eye Institute

• Sally Baxter, MD, MSc (Principal Investigator / Program Director)
• Linda Zangwill, PhD (Co-Principal Investigator / Program Director)
• Natalie Afshari, MD, MA
• Radha Ayyagari, PhD
• Dirk Bartsch, PhD
• Shyamanga Borooah, MD, PhD
• Jiun Do, MD, PhD
• Napoleone Ferrara, MD, PhD
• William Freeman, MD
• Won-Kyu Ju, PhD
• Don Kikkawa, MD
• Nathan L. Scott, MD, MPP
• Christopher B. Toomey, MD, PhD
• Karl Wahlin, PhD
• Robert N. Weinreb, MD

Department of Biomedical Informatics

• Shamim Nemati, PhD

Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care

• Alison Moore, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF

Geriatric Medicine and Psychiatry

• Dilip Jeste, MD

Scripps Department of Molecular Medicine

• Martin Friedlander, MD, PhD

2022 Program Alumni:

Rhiannon Buchholz

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCT-A) of Conjunctiva in Health and Disease

Mohammedreza Farshchi

Effect of Oxidative Stress from Hydroquinone on Cataract Development

Justin Huynh

Deep Learning Image Quality Assessment and Enhancement of Fundus Photographs Increases Accuracy in Automated Glaucomatous Optic Neuropathy Detection

Bryanna Lee

Investigating the Associations between Smoking and Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy through RNA Sequencing

For more information or questions about STRIVE please email UC San Diego program coordinator Victoria Patronilo at vpatronilo@health.ucsd.edu