In August, CBHDS Director Dr. Alexandra Hanlon, along with her team members Chris Grubb, Alicia Lozano, and Rachel Silverman, received the sole METER (Materials to Enhance Training in Experimental Rigor) award for this 2024 cohort. These awards support subject matter experts in providing scholarly material on rigorous experimental research principles. These materials are then incorporated into educational units by the CENTER (Creating an Educational Nexus for Training in Experimental Rigor) awardee led by Konrad Kording of the University of Pennsylvania. The CENTER team is responsible for organizing the initiative, building the final web-based platform, harmonizing the educational units, and producing digital elements such as videos, graphics, and interactive components.

The modules developed by Dr. Hanlon and her team will focus on:

  1. Creating a statistical analysis plan prior to starting a study
  2. Understanding and minimizing selection bias
  3. Preventing measurement bias

This award adds Virginia Tech to the distinguished list of universities that have received METER awards, including Duquesne University, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Smith College, The Ohio State University, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Washington, and Boston University.

For more details, check out the X post here.