# 20/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT VCU

> **NIH NIH U01** · VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $12,110

## Abstract

Project summary
Persons from marginalized communities are underrepresented in biomedical research as participants (1) such
as in clinical trials (2). There is an especially acute dearth of individuals from racial minorities as biomedical
scientists, including neuroscience (3). This under-representation results in reduced perspectives on culturally-
sensitive assessments for neurobehavioral and neuroscience research (4), but also impoverishes public health
research initiatives that may benefit health of racial minorities. This exclusion also necessitates generalization of
clinical trial data of whites to other populations in the absence of data for proper inference. Therefore, to help
improve inclusion in neuroscience research, the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) site of the Adolescent
Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (5) seeks supplemental funding to provide an immersive human-
subject biomedical research experience to Olive Calonge, who is graduating from Stony Brook University Spring
2021. They (preferred pronoun) have been selected among a highly competitive pool of applicants to the NIDA
program for immersive biomedical experiences, and have expressed an interest in developmental neuroscience.
Olive will be tasked with testing on-site families (VCU is fully-open for all ABCD procedures, but with
physical/spatial distancing). This would include scan-year and “off-year” visits. We believe that the team could
benefit from additional on-site help for these in-person visits to prevent staff burnout during peak accrual season
(late Spring and Summer). Olive will be afforded opportunities to perform all tasks typical of bachelor's degreed
RAs short of conducting (as sole staff member) neuroimaging sessions with cognitive task operation and a
handful of other more complex tasks that require careful training and cross-site harmonization. We are confident
that this hands-on interpersonal research experience will enable Olive to have a comprehensive grasp of many
of the regulatory and other complexities of cross-site big-data harmonized descriptive neuroscience data
collection, to further enable their career to unfold in the neurosciences.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10399189
- **Project number:** 3U01DA051037-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** James M Bjork
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $12,110
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-04-15 → 2027-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10399189

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10399189, 20/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT VCU (3U01DA051037-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10399189. Licensed CC0.

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