# MENTORING MULTIDISCIPLINARY PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH IN ENGAGEMENT IN HIV CARE

> **NIH NIH K24** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $141,410

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
In my first K24 award, I mentored a total of 32 mentees, working with them on 87 papers in the last six
years and shepherding 19 successful NIH K-series career development awards (with 6 as primary mentor).
In the next five years, I seek to renew my K24 award to maintain protected time for mentoring and advance
three new and exciting perspectives in mentoring. First, is to evolve from an “apprenticeship” model of
mentoring to a “co-pilot” model based on a therapeutic alliance (from the 2020 National Academies of
Sciences report) using an “Appreciative Inquiry” approach — a strengths-based approach well-known in
organizational psychology but new to mentoring as well as set the pathway for their eventual transition to
mentors themselves. To do so, I will seek to use a standard approach for soliciting how mentees see their
successes and strengths as a basis for a shared objective in the mentoring relationship. Second, I have
come to look beyond the dyadic relationship to see mentoring as creating a professional ecosystem in
which a mentee can thrive. I therefore propose to foster peer-to-peer and peer-to-other mentor activities,
including an annual retreat to solidify peer relationships between mentees. Third, I see success in science
more explicitly as translational impact rather than solely publications and grants, and will use the K24 award
to support training for mentees on the Translational Science Benefits Model — a novel framework for
valuing scientific outputs — and communications skills. For my research enterprise, I propose to use the
K24 renewal to make modest but critical extensions to my existing research program advancing person-
centered public health. Person-centered in public health context does not imply that every individual’s
preference can be accommodated but rather takes three feasible forms. First, personalization implies that
public health services can detect and respond to effects on individuals. To carry that forward, I propose
learning more about adaptive behavioral interventions to strengthen engagement in HIV care. Second,
personalization also implies that the interpersonal domains of public health services are important, and patients
— even in a public health setting — when treated with respect, have better engagement and outcomes. Finally,
person-centered services in the context of today’s HIV epidemic implies the growing integration of non-
communicable diseases in HIV programs — a key domain of person-centered services and an area of policy
and scientific interest. The new research proposed in this K24 represent incremental scientific steps nested
within a larger, well-funded research infrastructure. These analyses will yield preliminary data and hypothesis,
generating findings that have value to new mentees and can yield accessible preliminary data for additional
proposals. At the end of this next cycle, I hope to have nurtured a crop of leading-edge, implementation-
oriented researchers focused on a...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11013614
- **Project number:** 2K24AI134413-06A1
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Elvin H. Geng
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $141,410
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2017-07-01 → 2029-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11013614

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11013614, MENTORING MULTIDISCIPLINARY PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH IN ENGAGEMENT IN HIV CARE (2K24AI134413-06A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11013614. Licensed CC0.

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