Research Enhancement & Training Coordination Core (RETCC)

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Our RETCC not only helps the Superfund trainees with their scholarly activities and carrier development, but also actively participates and promotes community engagement activities. 

For example, Samantha Satterly, a trainee mentored by Lauren Heberle, created a website documenting the history of the Valley of the Drums Superfund Site in Louisville, Kentucky. She led a knowledge exchange session describing the history of the Valley of the Drums website in April 2024 that included several Louisville Metro representatives, students and residents from the area of the Superfund Site.  

Jamie Young Wise, a former postdoctoral trainee and current co-investigator of the RETCC, was featured on the NIEHS Core Center Spotlight for her efforts in collaboration with the NIEHS Center for Integrative Environmental Health Sciences Community Engagement Core. Wise led a group of approximately 20 high school students from Kentucky's Henderson County High School in hands-on research, collecting and analyzing water samples addressing contamination issues. Several of the high school students received awards for their research and were invited to present for state-wide research presentation awards.   

Numerous predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees presented their research at the Superfund annual meeting held in December 2025 and the Society of Toxicology (SOT) annual meeting held in March 2025.  Two special preparatory sessions were held by RETCC for trainees to practice their presentations for the SOT annual meeting. Trainees made 11 SOT presentations (Three oral, eight poster). 

Trainee modules are presented once a month (virtual facilitated participation by Yale and Wash U trainees) in partnership with the UofL T32 environmental health sciences training program. Topics include data rigor, reproducibility, management and analysis of large data sets, community engagement activities, exposure assessments, polluted site remediation, cardiometabolic toxicology, analytical core equipment and facilities, risk assessment, research communication and omics. 

 

 

RETCC Faculty