Peralta Reappointed Director of the IDPBBC
Dr. Allison Danell, dean of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, has announced the appointment of Dr. Ariane Peralta, associate professor of biology, to a second, three-year term as Director of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Biology, Biomedicine and Chemistry (IDPBBC). Peralta has held this critical leadership role since her first appointment in the fall of 2020.
Graduate students in the IDPBBC pursue coursework and research experiences in a variety of scientific settings in either the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences or ECU’s Brody School of Medicine. The work being pursued entails numerous disciplines and physical locations.
During her leadership, Peralta has focused on building community and clarifying processes to enhance recruitment efforts and program curriculum to ensure students are supported and successful, and that they have a voice through their own graduate student steering committee. She also has led efforts to implement an internationally known, research-based mentoring program through the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research, from the University of Wisconsin. CIMER amplifies the importance of providing an effective framework for graduate students and principal investigators to use in achieving complex and original research goals in a multi-year time frame.
Peralta facilitates these initiatives and strategies in an open, collaborative manner, routinely identifying opportunities to partner with other doctoral programs, including the program in Integrated Coastal Sciences. This team approach is evidenced in the $2 million National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program she helps lead, which supports graduate students in the IDPBBC and Integrated Coastal Sciences.
In her second term, Peralta will continue to promote intentional and inclusive mentorship toward a culture that values research mentoring excellence. In thoughtful alignment with the very nature of an interdisciplinary academic program, she aims to emphasize and support technical skill-building and communication to enable interdisciplinary scholarship.