Project Summary (2022-2027)

The Yale Superfund Research and Training Program (YSRTP) fosters problem-based, solution-oriented research related to the theme of water contaminant fate, exposure, remediation, and adverse health effects. To be most effective, this endeavor requires cross-trained scientists, engineers, and biomedical researchers with wide-ranging communication skills to successfully address emerging research and health questions. The proposed YSRTP unites the fields of public health, medicine, genetics, environmental chemistry, environmental engineering, and chemical fate and transport. They leverage this disciplinary diversity, departmental and University resources, and YSRTP’s diverse research areas and cores to produce trainees with depth in their specialized field, and a breadth of knowledge and professional experiences in environmental health, chemistry, and engineering; disciplines that are important for controlling exposure to hazardous environmental chemicals.

The goal of the YSRTP Research Experience and Training Coordination Core (RETCC) is to expand the breadth of educational, research, and professional development opportunities to pre- and post-doctoral trainees. The core includes four specific aims:

• Recruit a cadre of diverse, academically prepared doctoral students and post- doctoral researchers.
• Provide interdisciplinary training through a requirement of cross-disciplinary coursework and focused training in community outreach, results dissemination, risk communication, and research translation.
• Design and implement a program for interdisciplinary research exchanges within and external to Yale.
• Encourage trainee professional development through planned interactions with community partners, government agencies, and private industry.

RETCC central activities include specific symposia and workshops to broaden trainee education and research skillsets, mentorship programs to prepare students for candidacy exams and monitor dissertation progress; a graduate research seminar and other ancillary activities to encourage interaction among trainees and build a scholastic community, and an evaluation process to continually update and improve the RETCC. Training leverages the broader Yale University teaching, research, and mentoring infrastructure and builds synergies with the YSRTP cores in administration (research translation), community engagement and data management and analytics.

The training core focuses on pre- and post-doctoral trainees working in the fields of chemistry, environmental engineering, public health, and biomedical research within the YSRTP and includes an interdisciplinary (environmental engineering and biomedical research) directorship. Specific research areas include: the effects of water contaminants on reproductive toxicology, evaluation of 1,4-Dioxane (1.4-DX) exposure and early biological effects in drinking water, identification of early vs. late 1,4-DX-induced liver damage and carcinogenesis and of potential biomarkers of exposure, biosensors and chemical sensors and online contaminant monitoring, development of next-generation, modular advanced oxidation process technology.