Two Faculty Accepted into KL2 Program

The Stanford Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program has accepted Drs. Stephanie Chao and Clifford Sheckter into the KL2 Mentored Career Development Program. The KL2 Mentored Career Development Program is funded through the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Chao and Sheckter are two of the four scholars selected from a highly competitive application process to receive support.

Dr. Sheckter, who officially joined the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery's faculty only 20 days ago will investigate the effects of private equity acquisitions on surgical care outcomes with his mentor Dr. Todd Wagner.

Dr. Chao, who is an assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Surgery, aims to develop a novel, universal electronic-medical record (EMR) based screening tool to optimize child abuse detection. Her proposal is entitled: “Elucidating racial bias in child abuse reporting through standardized universal screening.” She will further seek to determine whether the implementation of the EMR-based screening tool improves screening accuracy and decreases racial disparities in child abuse identification.  

"This is a direct result of the seed funds that she was awarded that gave her the preliminary data for this award," said Department Chair Dr. Mary Hawn at the Ignatius Lecture on September 21.

KL2 provides up to $120,000 salary support, $40,000 for the research project and professional development activities (e.g., certificate, tuition) and $4,000 in travel funds for the duration of the award period, January 2022 – December 2023.