Many of our underrepresented minority students are supported in their graduate studies through the IMSD Program. The IMSD Program is run through the Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) division of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The broad aim of the program is to improve the academic and research competitiveness of underrepresented minority students at the undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral levels and to facilitate their progress toward careers in biomedical research. Awards are made to domestic, private and public, educational institutions that are involved in biomedical research and training and encourage the development and/or expansion of innovative programs.

The IMSD Program complements the MORE Divisions MARC Program (Minority Access to Research Careers), which offers special research training support to 4-year colleges, universities, and health professional schools with substantial enrollments of minorities. The IMSD program at Harvard School of Public Health is administered and housed in the Department of Biostatistics. We currently support 12 graduate students from the Departments of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Society, Human Development and Health.

Our IMSD program allows us to provide students with a supportive learning and mentoring environment at HSPH. Our Student Diversity Forum is an initiative for students interested in discussing issues of diversity around the school and at broader levels. The forum organizes weekly seminars or brownbag lunch series, offers faculty and peer support, as well as other social activities. The Summer Program in Quantitative Methods is also partially funded through our IMSD program. Although the IMSD is organized around the theme of minority health, it has the flexibility to support doctoral research in a wide variety of areas of application.

Many students initially funded by IMSD have successfully applied for their own individual grants, including Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellows and NIH F31 grants. These students continue to participate in some of the activities organized under the IMSD program and are a great source of support to the current IMSD students.