Mark McCourt, Dale Hogoboom and James A. Meier Professor of Psychology and director of the NDSU Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, has been elected to a three-year term on the National Association of IDeA Principal Investigators, known as NAIPI.
The national committee plays an important leadership role in health-related federal research grant programs that include the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program for Clinical and Translational Research (CTR), IDeA Networks Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), and Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE).
“By being a member of the national committee I will be in a position to assist the National Institutes of Health in their efforts to constantly improve the IDeA program, which is of vital importance to states like North Dakota, and which has greatly improved the biomedical research infrastructure at NDSU,” McCourt said.
The mission of NAIPI is to provide leadership and communication for the development, promotion and improvement of biomedical research through the three programs by identifying opportunities and developing strategies. Its goals include:
• Fostering interactions between the IDeA program and its constituencies
• Promoting resource sharing among the INBRE, COBRE and CTR programs
• Enhancing the visibility of the IDeA program
• Developing priorities and new directions for the IDeA program
• Identifying and disseminating best practices within the IDeA Program
McCourt earned his doctorate in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and joined the NDSU faculty in 1991. He was awarded the James A. Meier Professorship in 2004 and the Dale Hogoboom Professorship in 2009. In 2004, he and psychology colleagues were awarded a COBRE grant that established the NDSU Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience.
The National Institutes of Health established the IDeA program in 1993 to broaden the geographic distribution of federal funding for biomedical and behavioral research.
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