Our annual retreat was held in person from October 15-17, 2021 at the Stanford Sierra Conference Center, in Fallen Leaf Lake, near South Lake Tahoe, CA. The retreat was attended by 25 Program Trainees, 33 first year graduate students including six students from the IMSD Program, 2 undergraduate students from the MARC program, 5 students from the NIH PREP Program, several faculty trainers as well as graduate students and postdocs from trainer laboratories. All currently funded trainees gave 10 or 15 min oral presentations at the retreat, allowing them to share their recent progress and practice their communication skills in front of a large audience. There was also a poster session which provided an opportunity for trainers, graduate students in trainer’s laboratories, and undergraduate MARC students to present posters. This year, the program included two keynote talks focused on the important issues of career development and mentoring, respectively.

Dr. Shannon Muir who co-leads the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research gave the keynote talk on Friday October 15. Dr. Muir was invited and introduced by our trainees. The talk included a discussion of Dr. Muir’s graduate experience, how she got into science policy through a fellowship on the California Council on Science and Technology, the projects she worked on as policy fellow and how she transitioned to her current role in the California Governor’s office. She also described how she manages the selection and administration of grants for precision medicine demonstration projects as part of her current job. This was followed by a lively question and answer session that engaged many trainees and students in the audience.

On Saturday October 16, Ms. Elizabeth Sturdy, the Director of Mentoring and Academic Success Initiatives at the UC Davis Graduate Studies, presented a second keynote talk focused on “How to Cultivate Positive Mentoring Relationships”. Ms. Sturdy’s talk focused extensively on the importance of mentoring and the initiatives available at UC Davis that are aimed towards fostering a culture of mentoring and academic success. Immediately following the talk, we held a 45 minute panel discussion in which Trainers Ben Montpetit, Elva Diaz, and Fred Chedin served as panelists and answered audience questions. Trainees and students were highly engaged, and this led to a useful dialogue on this critical issue.

We also included a separate session for first year graduate students on the topic of “navigating early stages of graduate school”. Trainers Juliano, Starr, Zito and student trainee Jennifer Baily served as panelists on this session and answered students’ questions on a variety of topics from lab rotations, choosing a lab, first year course work, preparing for qualifying exams etc. During Saturday luncheon, we organized topic tables where faculty talked to students about navigating middle and late stages of graduate school. Overall, the retreat provided a unique opportunity for all attendees to reconnect after a hard year of Covid-19-driven isolation, network, and engage in stimulating scientific sessions.