Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core

Name Title Business Phone Email
Yenisel Cruz-Almeida Yenisel Cruz-Almeida Associate Professor & Associate Director, Pain Research & Intervention Center Of Excellence (352) 294-5845 cryeni@ufl.edu

The UF Older Americans Independence Center’s Pilot/Exploratory Studies Core serves to develop key information needed to select and design future, original, and independently funded studies that can advance our insight into sarcopenia, prevention, and rehabilitation of disability in older Americans. Specifically, the core fosters the Pilot and Exploratory studies by ensuring the availability of optimal infrastructure, environment, funding, expertise, and instrumentation.

Pilot and exploratory studies foster Junior Scholars in their efforts to develop research careers in aging by providing opportunities for meaningful participation in well-designed research studies and by collecting the needed preliminary data for independent research applications. Furthermore, these studies will allow investigators already accomplished in aging research to gather data which will extend and broaden their focus of research. Finally, these studies will also be a vehicle to encourage and facilitate experienced investigators traditionally working in other research fields to focus on aging.