PROJECT SUMMARY The overarching goal of the CDU-CRECD Program at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) is to provide training and mentoring to clinical faculty in research methodology and skills, empowering them to achieve the highest levels of scholarship on their respective pathways to successful, independent careers as clinician scientists. The training will focus on generating skills and projects that evidence mastery of research science and methods needed to generate evidence in support of improved population health through leveraging their clinical training and expertise with conducting research in basic-science, clinical trials, delivery of care, provider training, and/or community-based methods. The ultimate goal is to improve population health and reduce disparities in health outcomes. Achievement of this goal will be measured by the number of trainees who successfully pursue long-term research careers and by the quality and quantity of their work. Component I is comprised of innovative structured mentoring and support for earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from CDU with additional optional foci on the Science of Population Health, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Recruitment and Retention of Participants in Clinical and Epidemiological Research. Component II is comprised of pilot research projects that will enable participants to continue working toward establishing their own independent research program as clinician scientists leading to applications for individual mentored career development (K) or research grant (R series) awards. The CDU-CRECD Program will be embedded within the existing, extensive clinical research and training infrastructure at CDU and UCLA, and thus will mutually leverage resources with other CDU research education and career development programs so as to achieve maximal cross-program synergies as well as efficiencies from utilizing already-in-place education and training curricula and related resources germane to the CRECD agenda. The CDU-CRECD Program will also carve out a unique niche of training and career development opportunities within the broader CDU science-generating “critical mass” through (1) a focused research training agenda and (2) providing to each trainee an intensive and community-immersive mentoring configuration that includes CDU faculty from both the conventional Academic Career track and the Community Faculty track. This intensive mentoring innovation directly emerges from and formalizes and systematizes into a signature trainee mentoring configuration, a long and fruitful history of community-engaged research, training, and educational curricula at CDU. As an integrated research training and career development package, this approach is designed to develop independently funded clinician researchers who are informed by community-engagement and will contribute to the highest levels of population health.