Leslie Soto is a trainee at Illumination Institute and an awardee of the University of California Office of the President’s (UCOP) Diversity Supplement Award under the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP). Leslie will be receiving a $9,250 stipend and working with her mentor (Hai Hoang) on the breast cancer research project titled “Community-academic Partnership to Understand Increasing Breast Cancer Risk Among Asian Immigrants.” This research project is part of a larger project called “Understanding Breast Cancer Risk in Immigrant: Phase 1 Teams” funded by CBCRP which aims to develop and implement the California Breast Cancer Prevention Initiatives. Phase 1 aim is to bring together the diverse experts, community members, and ideas to lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive phase 2 study. The intent is to examine factors that have not been explored in the past. Specifically, CBCRP is interested in the impact of social and built environment, the stressors that come with immigration, including related policy and enforcement factors, and lived experiences of immigrants that might influence breast cancer risk.

In addition to working on the research project, Leslie along with 2 other trainees from the University of Southern California (USC) and OC Herald will be mentored by Hai Hoang, Dr. Kimberly Miller, Dr. Lihua Liu, and Sherry Huang from Illumination Institute, USC Keck’s School of Medicine, and OC Herald respectively. Leslie will receive training on quantitative and qualitative research methods, and she will be attending a Qualitative Data Analysis Camp hosted by Research Talk Inc. The training plan for Leslie will include four components:

1) Training in issues relevant to breast cancer-related Asian immigrant health and Asian enclaves.

2) Training in academic/community-based partnership work.

3) Training in general research methodology pertaining to study implementation.

4) Training in qualitative interviewing and analysis.

The above are intended to support Leslie’s career goals of pursuing a career in behavioral research and to provide her with a “real world” research experience especially from the perspective of a community-based participatory research approach.