About Us:

We are a leading research institution committed to advancing scientific knowledge and innovation. Our team is dedicated to conducting ground breaking research and providing meaningful learning opportunities for aspiring scientists. Join us and contribute to our mission while gaining invaluable experience in a dynamic and collaborative environment.

Principal Investigator, Mitzi Gonzales, PhD invites you to consider this great opportunity to join her dynamic team!

Overview of Department & Mentor

The Goldrich Center for Alzheimer?s and Memory Disorders clinic occupies 15,000 square feet on the 6th floor of the Cedars-Sinai the Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion (AHSP) building, which contains 100,000 square feet of state-of-the-art wet lab and supporting space for neuroscience and neurology related research. The Center coordinates the care of over 500 patients per year, has two fellowship-trained behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry specialists, one fellowship trained geriatric medicine specialist, one fellowship trained geriatric psychiatrist, three memory disorders nurse practitioners, one behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry fellow, two neuropsychologists specializing in memory disorders, and one dedicated social worker. Center research personnel include one research manager and one memory disorders clinical research coordinator.

Dr. Mitzi Gonzales is an Associate Professor of the Department of Neurology and the Director of Translational Research for the Goldrich Center for Alzheimer?s and Memory Disorders at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, who previously served as the co-Leader of the South Texas ADRC Clinical Core. Dr. Gonzales had led and collaborated on large-scale research efforts evaluating plasma proteins, sensory-motor functioning, and broader aging phenotypes as biomarkers for neurodegenerative disease risk. Dr. Gonzales is the Principal Investigator, alongside Dr. Sarah Kremen, for the Goldrich Observational ADRD Longitudinal studies, which the visiting scholar will partake in.

Role Summary & Objectives

The Research Intern will have the opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary team of neuropsychologists, neurologists, geriatricians, and clinical researchers with expertise in aging and Alzheimer?s disease and related dementias (ADRD). The Research Intern will be immersed in the clinical research process, gaining experience on study design and implementation. The Research Intern will be able to partake in two clinical research studies. The first, the GOAL Study, is an internally funded project that aims to establish a longitudinal cohort of individuals of across the ADRD continuum. The second is the RAPID study, which deploys brief cognitive testing and questionnaires relevant to ADRD. The Research Intern will learn fundamental skills relevant to clinical research in aging and ADRD including best practices for the informed consent process, human subjects' protection, clinical cohort study design, and community-based participatory research engagement. The overarching goal is to provide foundational clinical research skills that the successful candidate can apply to develop independent research projects in the future. In addition, the Research Intern will learn and apply data management skills using REDCap, basic statistical analyses, hypothesis development, and abstract writing. The successful candidate will develop and implement a clinical research project that can be completed using existing datasets and will produce an abstract that can be submitted to a local or national research conference.

Role Activities & Timeline

August 25th - August 31st: Human subjects' training; research ethics, fundamentals of the informed consent process.

September 1st - September 14th: Clinical research study design review; discussion of observational research projects; protocol review.

September 15th - October 14th: Overview community-engaged research, introduction to neurodegenerative diseases; observations of observational clinical research procedures; attendance at outreach events; attend consensus reviews and team meetings; introduction to data coding, REDCap; research literature review.

October 15th - November 14th: introduction to cognitive assessments; hands on administration practice; observations of observational clinical research procedures; attendance at outreach events; attend consensus reviews and team meetings; data quality assurance and management; research hypothesis generation.

November 15th - December 15th: observations of observational clinical research procedures; attendance at outreach events; attend consensus reviews and team meetings; research hypothesis testing and basic statistics, research abstract writing.

All weeks: One-on-one mentorship in clinical trial design, implementation, data management, statistics, and abstract writing.

Required Education & Experience

• Must be 18 years of age or older.
• Must have a HS Diploma or GED.
• Must reside in the greater Los Angeles area or surrounding cities while conducting all activities related to the intern or visitor appointment.
• INTERNS: Those participating for academic credit must receive academic credit for the duration of the internship.
• VISITORS: Must be receiving funding from an eligible sponsoring institution (employer, educator, funder, etc.).