TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

Training Opportunities Video Greeting

Contact Me Voice: (443) 740-2458 heishman@nih.gov

Investigate Our Investigators Investigator Pages Dr. Heishman's Page

Hi, my name is Steve Heishman. Thanks for visiting our website!

I’m Associate Director of Education and Training at the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Part of my job is to oversee the various student training programs. The NIDA Intramural Research Program is the largest drug abuse research facility in the world. As you read about NIDA’s research programs and search through the investigators, I’d like to encourage you to consider one of the training opportunities that we offer:

• The summer internship program for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students
• The postbaccalaureate program for college graduates who want to take a year or two off before either applying to graduate school or medical school
• The graduate partership program is for students already in grad school.
• And the postdoctoral fellowship is for those students who have completed their MD or PhD degrees

At NIDA, you will be able to work with some of the leading investigators in the field of drug abuse on cutting-edge research. We have recently moved into a new building that has state-of-the-art laboratories and research facilities that allow us to investigate all facets of drug addiction from molecular and cellular mechanisms to animal and human models of addiction to clinical treatments.

Let me give you two examples.

Using magnetic resonance imaging technology, investigators in our Neuroimaging Branch are probing the brain’s structure, function, and biochemistry in both healthy individuals and in those addicted to cocaine, nicotine, and other drugs of abuse.

We have recently acquired a multiphoton microscope that allows 3-D imaging of neurons located deep in the brain of a living animal. This will enable us for the first time to study how subcellular molecules as well as neuronal circuits are changed in response to drugs of abuse in real time.

I’d be happy to talk to you about your training and career goals, so don’t hesitate to contact me. My email address and phone number are here on the website. Or you can directly contact individual investigators about their research and potential training opportunities that they might have.

Thanks again for your interest in NIDA, and I wish you all the best in your path toward a scientific career.