Center for Transformative Infectious Disease Research on Climate, Health and Equity in a Changing Environment (C-CHANGE)

The Administrative Core (AC) has primary responsibility for overseeing and facilitating all aspects of the Center for Transformative Infectious Disease Research on Climate, Health and Equity in a Changing Environment (C- CHANGE). These duties encompass both the Center’s transdisciplinary, community-engaged research and its

research capacity building. As such, the AC will house the Center’s leadership, including multi-PIs Dr. Alexander Travis (Cornell) and Dr. Marinda Oosthuizen (University of Pretoria), lead administrators, Elizabeth Parr (Cornell) and Ninette Kotzee (University of Pretoria), and program facilitator Jonathan Tager (University of Pretoria). The

AC will provide structure/ support to test the Center’s overall hypothesis, that community-based research that integrates diverse kinds of data will drive the development of predictive epidemiological models. These will in turn enable the design and rigorous testing of preventative interventions–a transformative shift from responding

to outbreaks to preventing them before they occur. To realize C-CHANGE’s ultimate goal, the AC must fulfill its functions of ensuring efficient administrative and organizational operations. The AC will accomplish this mission through performance of three Specific Aims. First, the AC will provide oversight/governance as a whole, guiding

our science to ensure that it is community-engaged, transdisciplinary, and impact-oriented. We will manage our External Advisory Committee and self-evaluation processes, and manage and deploy the Center’s financial and personnel resources. Second, we will ensure timely and efficient flow of scientific information across all

components of the Center, and from the Center to external stakeholders. To create the kinds of predictive models that are our goal, we must integrate social, climate, land-use, animal and human health, and vector and pathogen genomic data. To have these models be actionable, and approaches disseminated broadly, we must ensure that

they are informed by both the rural communities with whom we work, and policymakers who might use them. Third, a major objective of the P20 mechanism is to build research capacity in climate change and health. Toward this goal, the AC will run competitive pilot grant and Rapid Response Fund grant mechanisms that will favor Early

Stage Investigators and collaborations between Cornell/Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Pretoria. These grants will enable junior faculty to test feasibility of ideas, generate preliminary data, and demonstrate ability to have productive partnerships and community engagement. Lastly, the AC will run a training program

focusing on post-doctoral associates and Early Stage Investigator faculty across both Cornell and the University of Pretoria. This program will enable groups that are historically underrepresented in science, who make up the

majority of scientists in the Center, to create transdisciplinary networks and learn the “soft skills” that are essential for climate change and health research and impact, such as communicating with diverse audiences ranging from the public to government and the private sector, and across disciplines/professions. Although a focus of our

training program, communication and partnership are key principles that guide all the AC’s activities.