# GEMS, a Short-Term Summer Internship Program for Diverse Students

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2021 · $128,520

## Abstract

This is a competing renewal application for a short-term research education program originally funded as a T35
in 2000 and as an R25 in 2010. Our major objective is to continue providing annual short-term research
education experiences for highly motivated students from under-represented backgrounds in order to expose
them to biomedical research in the area of pulmonary and cardiovascular disease. Locally known as GEMS
(Graduate Experiences for Multicultural Students), over the past 10 years, >138 undergraduate (UG) and 29
health professional students (HPS); >125 supported by the R25 and the rest supported by other programs.
Collectively, these students have published 93 manuscripts; >70% have earned terminal degrees, are working
in science or health-related fields or are still enrolled in school. More than 70% of student participants were
under-represented ethnic minorities. The program builds upon our established infrastructure and uses the
significant strengths of one of the top pulmonary medicine programs in the country. We continue the tradition of
addressing the pipeline by requesting 10 undergraduate and 4 health professional student slots. Here, in addition
to the usual didactic and hands-on research activities, we will use the model of academic “coaches” who are not
intended to supplant the mentor, but rather complement this relationship. Coaches will be past GEMS
participants who are still at Anschutz Medical Campus. Coaches will maintain contact with the students
throughout the year and will guide them through a successful career path. Furthermore, to ensure student
success, we propose to use social science approaches and provide the students with a toolkit that will create an
environment, a community of practice, where they feel safe to talk about personal, academic and professional
issues and to bond through shared norms and values. We will also implement implicit bias workshops and
mentoring best practices for students and mentors. We incorporate a set of targeted questions in the application
that will aid in selection of students highly motivated to pursue biomedical research. We believe that these
approaches will continue the GEMS tradition of excellence in training students from under-represented
backgrounds while at the same time enhancing student’s academic success beyond the summer GEMS
internship.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10166898
- **Project number:** 5R25HL103286-12
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** ADELA COTA-GOMEZ
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $128,520
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2010-07-01 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10166898

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10166898, GEMS, a Short-Term Summer Internship Program for Diverse Students (5R25HL103286-12). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10166898. Licensed CC0.

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