NIH BUILD PODER (Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity; Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research, $22M, 2014-2019) is a large undergraduate biomedical research training program, sustained by the formation of a new Health Equity Research and Education (HERE) Center that supports 4 cluster-hired faculty members and postdoctoral scholars in engaging undergraduates in biomedical research. Our transformative paradigm, Critical Race Theory, informs many programmatic activities including the student Summer JumpStart program and faculty mentor training. Under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Diversity Program Consortium (DPC), BUILD PODER is one of ten NIH-funded BUILD sites that train undergraduates to become biomedical researchers. Along with the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and the Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC), BUILD sites coordinate their programmatic activities and data to develop a national database of best practices in the Diversity Program Consortium. Poder means “power” or “to be able to" in Spanish. At BUILD PODER, we believe that when we diversify the biomedical workforce, researchers will generate innovative and relevant research questions, methods, and interpretations that will lead to health equity.
