Carnegie Mellon and Rand Traineeships

Training

• Projects
• Program
• SERG
• Speakers and Workshops

People

• Adam Sales, Postdoctoral Fellow, 2013-2015 
• Sarah Ryan, Postdoctoral Fellow, 2012-2014 
• Tracy Sweet, Affiliated Postdoctoral Fellow, 2012-2013 
• Jodi Casabianca, Postdoctoral Fellow, 2011-2013 
• Julia Kaufman, Postdoctoral Fellow,
  2010-2012 
  
• Brian Junker, Director (CMU)
• John Pane, Co-Director (RAND)
• Management Commitee

cmart@stat.cmu.edu

CMART Program

 

The CMART program is designed to help postdoctoral trainees develop the diverse set of methodological, statistical, and professional skills they will need to succeed as tenure track faculty members, or as research workers in other cross-disciplinary environments.    One the other hand we want CMART postdocs to be as free as possible to pursue their own interests in education research.

 

In order to provide coordinated supervision and mentoring of its trainees, the CMART program will operate under a management committee, which will oversee and coordinate CMART trainees’ activities.  The management committee will include of Junker (CMART director), Pane (CMART co-director), project leads working with CMART postdoctoral fellows, and a few other members of the Carnegie Mellon and RAND communities.

 

The main features of the CMART program are

• Research. CMART postdocs are expected to work on one or more research projects led by CMART-affiliated investigators. Inquiries or proposals for specific projects are also welcome.  Fellows will be mentored partners with CMART investigators on these project.  In addition CMART fellows may continue to pursue their own research.

• Seminars, Colloquia, Brown bags & Workshops.  Some of the regular seminar and colloquium series available to CMART postdocs include:
  • Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC) invited speaker series.
  • Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research (PIER) speaker series.
  • PIER Edbag series.
  • Department of Statistics Research Seminars and Colloquia (and related series organized by Google Pittsburgh and the Machine Learning Department).  
  • RAND Statistics Seminars.
  • RAND Education Research Brownbags.

In addition, CMART will also host at least one extended week-long workshop on education research methodology conducted by a visiting leading expert in the field, and up to three additional short term (1-2 day) seminar speakers. 

CMART postdocs will be encouraged to attend one or more of these series regularly, and expected to present in one per year.

• Two-Tiered Mentoring Activities. The primary mentors for CMART postdocs will be the project leads and other research partners that each postdoc works with day-to-day.  There will also be some secondary mentoring activities, such as occasional meetings with a CMART management committee member, and colloquia devoted to special topics of interest to CMART postdocs and other beginning researchers. Possible topics include
  • How to write a grant proposal
  • How to go back on the job market
  • What makes a good mentor?
  • Referee reports and publishing advice
  • Preparing and updating your CV
  • Research ethics
  • Time management
  • Cross-disciplinary collaborative research

• Additional Training
.  Where appropriate, CMART postdoctoral fellows may augment their training with courses in the Statistics Department, which offers seminars and workshops in latent variable, social network, item response and hierarchical linear models as well as many standard statistics courses; the PIER program', which offers courses on Scientific Research in Education, Education Goals Instruction and Assessment, and Research Methods in the Learning Sciences; or the many other courses relevant to education research at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, and the broader Pittsburgh learning research community.  

• Personal Work Plan. CMART postdoctoral fellows will develop and maintain a personal work plan.  Similar to a standard faculty annual report but with a more extended "future work" section including planned research (on CMART projects, personal research program, or both), planned travel, conference & professional activities, etc., the plan will be revised and reviewed twice a year, with an eye toward providing feedback to enhance the CMART postdoc experience.