Portland State Magazine Fall 2019

16 TWO YEARS ago, David Bangsberg, dean of the OHSU- PSU School of Public Health, invited student Travis (Henke) Benson into his office and pointed out two framed documents on his wall. One was a rejection letter from Harvard Medical School that he received as a disap- pointed undergrad some three decades earlier. The other was a congratulatory letter from the very same Harvard Medical School, welcoming Bangsberg as a new faculty member. His point: Aim high, because you never know when fate will deal you a winning hand. “The worst that could happen is that you could get a letter like this,” he says, pointing to the rejection. Benson, a first-generation student who started at PSU after nine years working in construction, initially thought Harvard was unobtainable. “I felt like I couldn’t compete with the numerous well-qualified students who came from an Ivy League background,” he says. But he took Bangsberg’s advice, applying to Harvard as well as nine other schools. “He was the first person I texted when I got my in- terview invitation and the first person I told when I got accepted,” he says. “I think he was more excited about it than I was at the time.” Bangsberg’s mentoring—as well as Benson’s ultimate success—is part of a larger program to help first-gen- eration students from ethnically diverse backgrounds become top-level biomedical, behavioral, social or clin- ical researchers in the health sciences. It’s called BUILD EXITO, an acronym that includes the words diversity and cross-disciplinary, describing the program’s mission. THE PROGRAM began in 2014 when PSU received a $24 million research and training grant from the Na- tional Institutes of Health (NIH). The program has been so successful that NIH recently issued another $19.3 mil- lion grant to carry it through for the next five years, by which time PSU hopes to make it self-sustaining. The PSU grant was part of a larger $240 million investment by the NIH to develop new approaches that engage researchers, including those from backgrounds under-represented in biomedical sciences, and prepare them to thrive in the NIH-funded workforce. PSU was one of 10 primary institutions selected through this initiative, which ultimately will support 50 institutions through partnerships. PSU’s partners are Portland and Clackamas com mu- nity colleges, Oregon Health & Science University, Clark College, University of Alaska, University of Guam, Northern Marianas College and American Samoa Community College. Students apply for the three-year program in the spring of their freshman year, either at PSU or one of the partner schools. Participants receive intensive mentoring and instruction on how scientific research is performed, then spend 10 hours a week on actual research projects at PSU or OHSU for the bulk of their time in the program. The research time is on top of their other school obligations. Not only is BUILD EXITO good for underrepre- sented students, it’s good for science in general. “There’s a reason why we are not doing as many major discoveries as we could, and that’s because our research workforce is not diverse at all,” says BUILD EXITO director Carlos Crespo. “And there is science behind the fact that a more diverse workforce pro- duces better research.” BOASTING a retention rate of nearly 90%, the pro- gram graduated its largest class in June: 52 students. They include Elizabeth Perez, the first in her family to complete college. A Detroit native, Perez moved to Portland for work and enrolled at Portland Commu- nity College. She was accepted to the BUILD EXITO program there, and then transferred to PSU as a sophomore. “Being first-generation, I didn’t know all the differ- ent possibilities available to me. I thought I wanted to be a lab technician, but BUILD EXITO took me into a totally different direction,” she says. Perez received her bachelor's in biochemistry and will become a Ph.D. student in the Biological and SMART. MOTIVATED. DIVERSE. BUILD EXITO is creating the next generation of health researchers. Written by John Kirkland