Milestones & Progress Assessment
The RE-Training Program will implement several mechanisms to ensure trainees are making the desired progress. The trainee’s 3-person Mentor Team has primary and direct responsibility for trainee progress, which will be evaluated by the Executive Committee bi-annually.
Within the Mentor Team, the trainee must identify two mentors that will serve as Ph.D. thesis advisors. These co-advisors must have diverse or complementary backgrounds and at least one of them must have a significant track record of training pre-doctoral candidates. The third mentor will be an additional resource to support the professional or regenerative engineering research growth of the trainee. A Thesis Committee, whose membership also includes the industry partner representative that will supervise the trainee during their RE-Practice School experience, will also monitor and guide trainee progress.
Trainees will be required to submit an Individual Development Plan upon appointment to the program and must provide annual updates, endorsed by their Mentor Team, to the program director. In addition, trainees must submit biannual progress reports that include either their clinical immersion and/or RE Practice School experiences and present their work at least once each quarter to fellow students and preceptors during the Student Research Forum. CARE will organize the bi-weekly RE-Training Program Student Research Forum to provide a venue for this activity.
Select trainees will be invited to present at CARE’s bi-annual Symposium on Regenerative Engineering. The progress report should highlight any new frameworks, knowledge base, or scientific language they are developing or contributing towards, consistent with the mission of creating an environment for convergence research and the practical applications of regenerative engineering products.
Trainee feedback regarding the program will take place in the form of: 1) an anonymous online survey, 2) an annual focus group, 3) quarterly breakfast or lunch meetings with the director or associate director, and 4) representative participation on the Executive Committee. Feedback will be especially requested on mentoring quality and career development activities to ensure we meet trainee expectations. Feedback to the trainee will be given on a regular basis by the Mentor Team and bi-annually by the Thesis and Executive Committees.