he program maintained its leadership since 2006. Dr. Amr Soliman has served as the Principal Investigator and Dr. Robert Chamberlain has served as the Co-Investigator of the CEESP Program since its inception in 2006. The Program started at the University of Michigan School of Public Health then moved to the University of Nebraska College of Public Health and recently to the City University of New York (CUNY) in 2018 with the move of the Program leadership to CUNY.
The Program provides funding for students to travel and conduct mentored summer research internships in foreign countries and U.S. minority settings. The Program is open to graduate public health students (MPH, MSc, PhD, and Dr.PH) from all schools and programs of public health in the U.S. Over the past 15 years, students have conducted research utilizing the strong infrastructure of the Program in East, West, and North Africa; the Middle East; Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Far East.
Over 150 MPH and PhD students have been trained through the Program since 2006 in global and U.S. minority settings. Over 60% of the alumni of the Program have pursued careers in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention and controls in PhD and post-doctoral programs, as faculty and government researchers, and cancer researchers at NGOs and cancer centers in global and U.S. centers. Over 70% of the alumni of the Program have published at least one manuscript by the end of their summer research training.
The Program is funded from the NCI through a 5-year grant cycle. In the first 2 grant cycles (2006-2016), students were required to take courses in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention and control. The courses have been recorded and are available for students to study on their own. The Program provides career planning and advising to the students in the end of their summer period where a post-summer career development workshop is offered to students at CUNY in New York city. Senior faculty from schools of public health and medicine, federal and state agencies, NGOs, and pharmaceutical companies introduce students to career opportunities in different fields and disciplines.