Research

Office of Cancer Training and Education

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Image of UCLA's Hamilton Oh and Melissa Papuc
UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center undergraduate research fellows Melissa Papuc and Hamilton Oh present their posters at UCLA Undergraduate Research Day
The Office of Cancer Training and Education now offers free virtual assistance for cancer training, education, and mentorship related meetings. Click the image above to download the flyer

The UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Office of Cancer Training and Education is committed to exceptional cancer research education, mentorship and training to support trainee career development and provide a foundation for ongoing progress against cancer. Our mission is to foster innovation and excellence in interdisciplinary cancer education and training through partnerships and to create innovative and complementary cancer-related education and training programs for all trainee levels. The Office embraces, coordinates, and helps organize rich and diverse cancer education and training programs across the UCLA campus and at affiliate and partner institutions. Serving as a coordination center for all educational activities in the Cancer Center, the Office provides an academic and administrative scaffold for supporting cancer-related training and education in basic, clinical, and population sciences.

To achieve our mission the Office has three primary objectives:

  • To identify, integrate, and support existing cancer-relevant education and training activities
  • To create and coordinate new cancer education, career development, and mentorship programs and activities
  • To engage trainees from underrepresented groups and support their cancer career development

Meet the team

Maie St. John, MD, PhD

Associate Director for Cancer Education, Training and Mentoring

Dr. Maie St. John is a professor and the Thomas C. Calcaterra Chair in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery who runs a successful NCI/NIH funded laboratory program focused on identifying novel diagnostic and treatment modalities for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. As Associate Director of Education, Training and Mentoring for the Cancer Center and Director of the Office of Cancer Training and Education, she provides direction and works closely with her staff to identify, develop, implement and run cancer-focused education and training programs across the training continuum. [Email]

Nishtha Agarwal, BDS, MPH

Administrative Director

Nishtha is a foreign trained Dentist with a Master’s degree in Public Health from California State University Long Beach. She has more than seven years of experience in planning, designing and implementing educational programs at various levels. She oversees all office staff and daily operations of the Office of Cancer Training and Education. Additionally, she is responsible for overall strategic planning and supervision of all Cancer Center’s education, training and mentoring activities including developing, implementing, and modifying strategies to meet goals and objectives. [Email]

Ian Aust

Data Analyst

Ian provides support to the Office of Cancer Training and Education for monitoring and tracking progress of programs used for continual improvement on offerings. [Email]

Monique Townson

Program Coordinator

Monique is responsible for supporting a wide variety of education, training and mentoring activities and initiatives. As well as assisting in new program development, data collection, analysis, and reporting program outcomes tracking. [Email]

Virtual assistance

The Office of Cancer Training and Education offers free virtual assistance for cancer training, education, and mentorship related meetings. Virtual assistance is available to all Cancer Center members only, and a two-month notice is required for all meeting requests.

For more information, click on the image to the right or click here to download the flyer.

Education and training programs across the Continuum

High School Programs

Undergraduate Programs

Graduate Students, Post-Doctoral and Clinical Fellow Programs

Oncology Fellowship Program for Residents

Faculty and Healthcare Professionals Programs

Other Training Programs

NIH T32 Training Programs

To learn more about the broad spectrum of NIH T32 training programs at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and any of the programs listed below, click here.

  • The Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI) Predoctoral Research Training Program
  • UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientists Training Program (MSTP)
  • UCLA Tumor Immunology Institutional Training Grant
  • Tumor Cell Biology Training Program
  • Molecular Epidemiology Cancer Training Program
  • UCLA Medical Genetics Training Program
  • UCLA Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Training Program
  • Physics and Biology in Medicine Research Training
  • Dermatology Scientists Training Program
  • Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Training in Urologic and Gynecologic Cancers (PCORT UroGynCan)
  • Medical Imaging Informatics Training Grant
  • Caltech/UCLA Individualized Theranostic Engineering to Advance Metabolic System (iTEAM)
  • Training in Developmental Hematology
  • Research Training in Cellular and Molecular Biology

Seminars, events and initiatives

Inaugural Women in Oncology Networking Event brings together women in the field from throughout Los Angeles region
Image of flyer for Girls in Stem video series seminar
The JCCC is partnering with the American Medical Women's Association Club at UCLA for a series of videos and panel discussions to discuss issues that affect elementary, middle, and high school girls in STEM.

Girls in Stem Video Series

As part of our commitment to Girls in STEM, the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center is partnering with the American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) Club at UCLA for a series of videos and panel discussions. JCCC professionals will talk with current UCLA students in STEM fields to discuss issues that affect elementary, middle, and high school girls in STEM. In this inaugural discussion, panelists will be asked to share their journey and talk about "what do they wish they knew before embarking on a career in STEM?" Student panelists from AMWA include biology, microbiology, and aerospace engineering majors. The panel will include time for a Q&A.

Click here for more information and to RSVP for the virtual seminar.

Seminars and Other Educational Activities

For greater than 20 years, the Cancer Center has hosted a weekly seminar series as a  forum for interactions between UCLA faculty, researchers, physicians, students, and staff to learn about impactful research being performed at UCLA and elsewhere, and to host scientific leaders from other institutions. The Center also organizes journal clubs, tumor board meetings, symposia, retreats, shared resource workshops and other activities.

Click here for the Calendar of Cancer Center Activities.

Women in Oncology Initiative

Launched in fall 2018 the Women in Oncology Initiative is a program that seeks to bring together female oncology leaders from across Los Angeles and neighboring counties. Participants are from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, City of Hope, USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Center, and community oncology practices. Together they work to develop programs and provide opportunities to professionally advance women at all stages in their careers. For information on the Initiative, contact Allison Muff: MAllison@mednet.ucla.edu

Clinical Research Unit Training Programs

The Cancer Center’s Clinical Research Unit (CRU) provides training programs for faculty clinical researchers, allied health professionals, clinical research coordinators, regulatory coordinators, and others involved in the performance of cancer clinical research. Organized by the CRU’s Coordination Services & Education unit are programs including the New PI/Sub-I Training Program, Clinical Research Coordinator On-Boarding Program, Clinical Investigator On-Boarding Program, Clinical Research Coordinator Certification Program, Clinical Research Coordinator Council, Clinical Research Coordinator Forum, and Clinical Research Best Practices Program.

Other resources

Funding Opportunities

The Cancer Center has several intramural funding mechanisms, including the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Fellowship Program that accepts applications annually for cancer-focused research projects from post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and residents. The goal of the Fellowship Program is to provide research funding to pursue research projects and develop preliminary data needed to competitively apply for NIH F-type grants. The Center additionally maintains a webpage highlighting extramural cancer-focused funding opportunities.

  1. Fellowship Awards Program for Graduate Students, Postdocs, Residents and Clinical Fellows. Please visit our UCLA CCLE (Common Collaboration and Learning Environment) external funding portal for information on the program and how to apply.
  2. Tumor Immunology T32 Training Program (post-doctoral) (Program Announcement / Application Form)
Image of UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center BASE shared resource Image of UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center BASE shared resource Image of UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center BASE shared resource
Three cancer center shared resources come together to offer single cell sequencing and data analysis workshop

CTSI Education and Training

Career Skills Development

UCLA Postdoc Professional Development Resources

Career Planning Resources

National Resources

Coming soon

  • An exciting web based application, which will help connect trainees with mentors based on areas of interest.
  • "Career Kickstart" panel event for junior faculty
  • Seminars and other Education activities. Click here to see the Calendar of our activities.

For additional information, suggestions or ideas, please contact us at nishthaagarwal@mednet.ucla.edu