Research Intern (Academic Credit) - Department of Neurology - Per Diem (On-site)

Location: Los Angeles, CA, United States Department: Student/Intern/Trainee

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.

The Research Internship program provides students and trainees an opportunity to develop basic research skills. Interns in this program are provided the opportunity to experience and observe many different aspects of basic, translational and/or clinical research. This program offers interns a unique experience, which is intended to provide a wealth of knowledge about the numerous options for a career in healthcare research. Typically lasting not more than a twelve-month period, this internship will expose participants to a diverse spectrum of clinical and non-clinical based research investigations. Under direct supervision from the assigned Postdoctoral Scientist, senior-level Research Associate and/or Principal Investigator, the intern will be provided with basic research instruction, will be oriented to the Institutional Review Board and other Human Subjects courses, and will be introduced to new and innovative research practices and techniques.

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 oversees 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 and clinician scientist, who has 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. Sarah Kremen is an Associate Professor of the Department of Neurology, where she serves as the Director of the Neurobehavior Program in the Department of Neurology and the Goldrich Alzheimer’s and Memory Disorders Center. She is a board-certified neurologist with subspecialty training in Neurobehavior and Neuropsychiatry. Dr. Kremen’s research focuses on clinicopathological correlation in neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, and the lived impact of implementation of new diagnostics and therapies.

Dr. Gonzales and Dr. Kremen co-lead for the Goldrich Observational ADRD Longitudinal studies, which the visiting scholar will partake in.

Role Activities & Timeline

January 15th - January 31st

Human subjects training; research ethics, fundamentals of the informed consent process

February 1st – February 14th

Clinical research study design review; discussion of observational research projects; protocol review

February 15th – March 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

March 15th – April 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

April 15th – May 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: mentorship in clinical trial design, implementation, data management, statistics, and abstract writing

Systems Access: N/A

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 utilize to develop independent research projects in the future. In addition, the Research Intern will learn data management skills using REDCap, basic statistical analyses, hypot