Intergovernmental Personnel Act--Basic & Biobehavioral and Tobacco Control Research

The IPA affords an opportunity to work with tobacco research scientists in the Basic & Biobehavioral and Tobacco Control Research branches on focused projects during the IPA assignment. It provides opportunities to work with various components within the NCI branch structures of TRCB and BBRB, as well as the Offices of Communications and Education and the Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities. Additionally, there are a number oflarge data sets to be mined in the areas of cancer health disparities, tobacco-related health disparities, and the role of social and behavioral influences on cancer outcomes in understudied and/or underrepresented populations. Finally, involvement in developing manuscripts and future RFA's based on the work of both networks is anticipated. The work will benefit NCI by providing for a focused effort toward continued momentum of unfinished projects, implementing strategic plans to foster dissemination of TReND network products, and sustainability of creative ideas that are currently without a structure for implementation. The cognitive and technical skills to be acquired are those related to further investigating factors that contribute to tobacco-related health disparities. At the completion of the IPA, Dr. Alexander will have the ability to 1) utilize large data sets for the development of scientific reports and manuscripts for publication 2) apply knowledge of behavioral science theory to conduct research focused on multiple levels of biological and behavioral change mechanisms associated with cancer risk, and 3) apply the principles ofteam and collaborative science to facilitate the discovery of and subsequent dissemination of new methods of scientific inquiry in cancer research. The University of Kentucky' s mission includes an expectation for faculty to become engaged scholars through outreach. The IPA will enable Dr. Alexander to fulfill this requirement of the professoriate. Additionally, upon her return to the university she will bring a wealth of knowledge and experiences that will positively influence her teaching in the graduate program, facilitate more interprofessional collaborative research with other colleagues in health science, medicine, biology, and environmental health, and external state, regional and federal agencies. It will also increase the likelihood to be successful for ROI and other grant funding, and enhance the success of a planned tobacco-related health disparities scholar series in the UK College of Public Health due to the tremendous networking opportunities during the IPA.