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Gordon Selected to Participate in Leadership Development Program

October 30, 2024
by Christopher Gardner

Derrick M. Gordon, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, has been selected to participate in the Transforming Biomedical Research and Academic Faculty through Leadership Opportunities, Training, and Mentorship (TRANSFORM) Program.

TRANSFORM is a highly competitive year-long national leadership development program for mid-career faculty and is funded by the National Institute for General Medical Sciences. It is a partnership among five institutions -- Association of American Medical Colleges, Meharry Medical College, University of Pittsburgh (lead institution), Oregon Health and Science University, and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The program’s goal is to transform biomedical and academic institutions by ensuring that underrepresented minority faculty at the associate professor level acquire leadership skills and experiences to advance successfully into senior faculty and leadership positions at their academic institution and nationally.

Gordon was chosen via a nationally competitive application process for this year’s cohort. He is director of the Program on Male Development in the Division of Prevention and Community Research in the Yale Department of Psychiatry and is a Core scientist in the Community Research Core of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA).

He has considerable experience in intervention and prevention development having served as an investigator on several federal, NIH, and state-funded projects and studies focused on those factors that either support or undermine men transitioning from prison back to the community; the engagement of low-income, non-custodial fathers; the identification and service of adolescent fathers committed to child protection services; and men mandated to batterer intervention groups in the community.

In TRANSFORM, Gordon and other cohort members will participate in programs to enhance leadership skills, build strong mentoring relationships to advance their career goals, and leverage executive coaching to more intentionally advance their careers. They will design and implement a transformational institutional leadership project to elevate their leadership, visibility, and contribution at their institution and nationally.

The projects will be presented at the Association of American Medical Colleges Mid-Career Minority Faculty Leadership Seminar in September 2025 in Washington, DC.