# HSTA TEAMS for Community Health: Teaching Educators and Adolescents Mentoring and Science (TEAMS) to Improve Community Health

> **NIH NIH R25** · WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $265,414

## Abstract

For 28 years the Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA) of the West Virginia University
(WVU) Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center with the help of the National Institute of Health (NIH)
Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), has implemented a one-of-a-kind mentoring program
designed to assist WV high-school students enter and succeed in Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics and Medicine (STEM+M) based undergraduate and graduate degree programs, in which
they are under-represented and underserved. HSTA submits this proposal with the novel approach of
using a team-based mentoring structure to facilitate the development and execution of Community Based
Participatory Research (CBPR) and Citizen Science (CI) projects, to be carried out by HSTA students.
HSTA marshals and links the efforts of an impressive network of mentors across educational levels to
support 160 junior students annually (800 over a five-year period) through HSTA TEAMS.
The innovation of HSTA TEAMS is in the combined use of the flexible structure of HSTA and the long
arc of mentorship linkages, connecting college to community through high school, and now middle
school students, in over half of WV counties across the state. It is the flexible structure of HSTA that
allows the HSTA BioMed Summer Institute and HSTA community-based after-school club curriculum to
respond to what is happening on the ground for HSTA families and communities, as well as with what the
research community is observing and investigating. The Biomedical Summer Institute at WVU for
teachers, mentors, and students directed by HSTA leadership and staff in collaboration with university
faculty sets the foundation for the HSTA academic year community-based after school clubs during
which specially trained HSTA teachers mentor students into research. Through the after-school club
curriculum HSTA students will use validated resources, supported by HSTA TEAMS of mentors, to
design STEM+M educational interventions or experiments with middle school students. The results of the
STEM+M community-based research projects will be disseminated through regional and state HSTA
research symposiums, as well as through national conferences and publications.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10913400
- **Project number:** 5R25GM146285-02
- **Recipient organization:** WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Mary Catherine Morton
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $265,414
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10913400

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10913400, HSTA TEAMS for Community Health: Teaching Educators and Adolescents Mentoring and Science (TEAMS) to Improve Community Health (5R25GM146285-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10913400. Licensed CC0.

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