The Cancer Prevention Internship Program (CPIP) is a twelve month program which engages undergraduate and graduate students in cutting-edge cancer prevention research with mentors from across campus. The program is highly interdisciplinary with student participants and faculty mentors from almost every college. The program is unique because of the breadth of disciplines the students are exposed to and that they are trained to optimize their understanding of the importance and ability to work in highly interdisciplinary teams, which is critical to address the complexity of cancer prevention.
The mentors in CPIP are basic and social scientists as well as engineers; a broad swath of disciplines to gain basic knowledge, identifying new very early diagnostic methods, and applying what is learned to changing behaviors and public policy.
The program also includes in-depth professional development activities, including communication across disciplines, and introducing the students to many career opportunities. Finally, a very important component of the program is that all the students work as a team to impact the community in service learning activities related to cancer prevention, such as programs to increase awareness of HPV vaccines and prevention of lung cancer in the students at Purdue.
