ABSTRACT Numerous reports have called for new interventions to prevent obesity and mitigate the current high rates of obesity and their projected rise. In order to achieve these aims, a diverse biomedical workforce in the United States is needed, and this need is particularly pronounced among individuals from underrepresented groups. In the 2016 report “Charting the Future Together: The NHLBI Strategic Vision,” the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) calls for developing and sustaining the diversity of a scientific workforce capable of accomplishing this mission. Increasing the size and diversity of the biomedical research workforce in the field of obesity health disparities is a critical component of achieving NHLBI’s mission, and is essential to meet the national goal of reducing the proportion of adults who are obese to 33.9% by 2020. For the past four years, our site – Obesity Health Disparities (OHD PRIDE) - has been one of seven PRIDE sites funded to develop and implement a comprehensive research training and mentoring program for early-career faculty members from groups that are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences (R25HL126145). In this renewal application, we describe our strategy for implementing and evaluating a refined evidence-based, culturally- and environmentally-relevant research training and mentoring program specifically targeting eligible early-career faculty who are employed and/or trained at HBCUs. OHD PRIDE will consist of five phases: (1) an initial 10- day intensive face-to-face summer program; (2) ongoing web-based Writing Accountability Groups (WAGs) during the academic year; (3) a 3-day mid-year mentored meeting; (4) a culminating 4-day face-to-face summer program; and (5) an expansion of our ongoing alumni program, designed to create a sustainable network of intellectual and social support beyond the program’s research training experience that builds on our existing alumni. Our proposed program will continue to provide skills training in community-based interventions and secondary data analyses to address obesity disparities. !