The Multidisciplinary International Research Training (MIRT) Program and its director Michelle Williams, professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, will receive the UW Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence at the annual UW Awards Ceremony in June. The award recognizes outstanding collaboration to improve undergraduate education.

MIRT is an innovative program that provides international research training opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students. The genesis of the program can be found in the incredible academic journey of its director, Dr. Michelle Williams.

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Williams grew up in Queens, New York, attended public schools, and aspired to go to college on a sports scholarship.

“I was trying to get a volleyball scholarship when one of my teachers told me to reach higher, and handed me an application to Princeton,” Williams recalled. “I got into Princeton –– an elite school that was out of my vision. So many horizons are artificially low because we don’t have the experience or exposure to reach higher.”

At Princeton, Williams studied developmental genetics and molecular biology with Eric Wieschaus, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1995 for identifying and classifying genes that control early embryonic development in Drosophila (fruit flies).

“When I met him, I said, ‘I want to be in your lab and I’ll even wash your test tubes,’” she said. “When I returned to his lab after that initial meeting, he had cleared out a space for me on the bench, and I began to study embryonic development of fruit flies. To be in his space, and to work right along side him, was incredible. I was just an undergraduate student. I fell in love with the beauty of science.”

Williams worked on classifying a segment polarity gene called armadillo as part of her undergraduate thesis. This work was eventually published in the journal Development.

After Princeton, Williams earned a master’s degree in civil engineering at Tufts University, where an epidemiologist introduced her to public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics. “I found an opportunity to integrate my love for biology with my strong desire to find solutions to social, bio-behavioral, and medical problems—problems that disproportionately affect low-income populations, immigrants, and racial/ethnic minorities.” Williams completed her doctorate in epidemiology at Harvard University’s School of Public Health in 1991.

“I had incredible access to outstanding individuals along the way,” she said. “There was a path. These are the experiences that drive the MIRT program.”

Williams came to the UW in 1992 as an assistant professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. In 1993, she developed MIRT, theMultidisciplinary International Research Training program.

MIRT archive photo: Professors George and Barrett with MIRT '97 fellows at the University of Zimbabwe.

 

“I started the program in response to a request for proposals from the National Institutes of Health to engage in public health and leadership,” Williams said. “I thought of creating something that would allow minority students to have an international experience, something I didn’t have until I was a graduate student. We got funded, and in 1995 one of our first group of students went to Zimbabwe.”

That first trip was an incredible learning experience for the UW students and cemented Williams’ commitment to continue the MIRT program.

Drs Fitzpatrick and Williams with MIRT 2006 fellows.

“The biggest determinant of health is poverty,” she said. “What I learned was that with the right connections and a will to make things work, you can have a significant impact even in resource-poor settings.”

The MIRT program is a “win-win” for all involved. Each year, students in an array of disciplines (biology, chemistry, neurosciences, etc.) from schools across the United States vie for one of the 10 available slots in the program, which provides two-month long residencies in foreign countries, working on real problems with host researchers. Students develop their analytic skills and improve their writing and research skills, and the host researchers gain valuable assistance on their projects.

The program builds on established UW relationships throughout the developing world, including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Thailand, Republic of Georgia, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. Students spend two to three months in their designated country learning about population-based research and assisting their host institutions in furthering much needed research and health services projects.

To participate in the program students must be research oriented, have proven academic scholarship, and demonstrate a commitment to community. In addition to these basic criteria, Williams has one other major requirement.

“I demand excellence. When you’re working in a poor environment with meager resources, you don’t have the luxury of wasting time or resources,” Williams said. “I am intolerant of mediocrity, especially in developing countries where that mediocrity could mean life or death because of the lack of a safety net.

“Our students have worked on such problems as water-borne diseases in Zimbabwe, maternal mortality in Peru, iron deficiency and cardiovascular disease in the Republic of Georgia. These kinds of experiences encourage the expansion of cultural perspectives and international knowledge of students and faculty –– and that often means being outside of one’s comfort zone. Our students are leaving their comfort zones, both culturally and economically. They trust me, faculty, and staff to challenge them and to support them as they work through that discomfort.”

Since the program’s beginning, 135 students have been trained through the MIRT program. As a result of their experiences, many have achieved more than they could have imagined.

“Our students have gone on to medical school, joined the Peace Corps, become Fulbright Scholars. Six are now faculty members in institutions of higher learning, and 65 have published in scientific journals.”

Winning the Brotman Award means a lot to Williams and the MIRT program.

“With this attention, we may be able to grow the program and give more students these kinds of experiences and successes. I know that I’m thankful that I had people in the community who said ‘You can reach higher.’

“Someone in the academy has to say to students ‘Come along with us.’ I’d like to be that person for these students.”

Marsha Rule
UWeek Health Sciences Editor
Health Sciences/UW Medicine
News & Community Relations