On Research Podcast – CITI Program Turns 25: A Celebration of Commitment to Research Integrity

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1. Introduction Quote (00:00:05) Adiper praises the team for their hard work and celebrates the organization’s achievements.
2. New Host Introduction (00:00:51) Alexa McClellan introduces herself as the new host and outlines her background and the podcast’s purpose.
3. 25th Anniversary Celebration (00:02:42) The podcast celebrates CITI Program’s 25th anniversary and introduces a panel of long-time employees.
4. Panelist Introductions (00:03:40) Panelists introduce themselves and share their roles and tenures at CITI Program.
5. CITI Program’s Origin (00:06:03) Jamie explains CITI’s founding as a response to IRB training requirements and its evolution over time.
6. Clarifying CITI’s Name (00:06:25) Discussion about the correct terminology for referring to CITI Program and its historical name.
7. Evolution of CITI’s Mission (00:07:27) Daniel discusses how CITI’s mission has broadened to meet the needs of various institutions.
8. Pivotal Moments in History (00:08:50) Daniel highlights significant milestones in CITI’s history and its growth over the years.
9. Founding Context (00:11:18) Jamie emphasizes the collaborative nature of CITI’s founding and the contributions from various institutions.
10. Changes in Research Compliance (00:13:25) Jamie discusses how the landscape of research compliance has shifted since CITI’s inception.
11. Memories from Long-Time Employees (00:15:11) Adiper shares personal anecdotes illustrating CITI’s growth and development over the years.
12. Innovations and Initiatives (00:18:39) Daniel reflects on CITI’s commitment to high-quality education and content updates over the years.
13. Response to COVID-19 (00:20:19) Discussion about how CITI quickly adapted to provide remote training during the pandemic.
14. Utilization of CITI Program (00:21:40) Panelists discuss how institutions have increasingly relied on CITI’s remote training solutions.
15. Company Culture (00:23:41) The role of company culture in sustaining success and collaboration within CITI Program is highlighted.
16. The Collaborative Nature of CITI Program (26:11) Discussion on the importance of collaboration and recognition from the customer base in developing content.
17. Challenges Ahead for Research Compliance (26:52) Exploration of upcoming challenges in research compliance due to changes in federal regulations and global competition.
18. CITI Program’s Future Preparation (28:28) Overview of how CITI Program plans to adapt to future challenges through updated training content.
19. Subject Matter Experts and Collaboration (29:36) Discussion on the role of subject matter experts in contributing to CITI Program’s evolving offerings.
20. Message to Founders (30:40) A personal message reflecting pride in the growth and impact of CITI Program since its inception.
21. Personal Reflections on 25 Years (32:10) Emotional insights on the journey and impact of CITI Program on the research community over 25 years.
22. Conclusion of the 25th Anniversary Episode (35:25) Wrap-up of the episode, highlighting the passion and dedication behind CITI Program’s success.

Adiper Bello: I can speak on behalf of the team. You should be proud of all the work that we put together, all your efforts answering to customer needs, or creating new content because we need to be in compliance with the federal government.

So I think that this is a time for us to celebrate as a team and to look back and see where we at today. And I think it’s remarkable and I have to say great job to everybody, and that includes each author that has come and has contributed a piece of them towards CITI.

Alexa McClellan: Hello and welcome to On Research with CITI Program, where we discuss issues that impact scientific research and research compliance. If you’re a long-time listener, you may have noticed a new voice behind the mic. I’m Alexa McClellan, and I’m honored to step into the role as your new host. I’m very excited to be following in the footsteps of Justin Osborne, whose thoughtful interviews and deep insight helped shape this podcast into what it is today. Justin, thank you, and we wish you the best.

A bit about me. I am the associate Director of Research Foundations at CITI Program, where I develop and manage content in core areas of research compliance, including human subjects research, animal care and use, responsible conduct of research, and conflicts of interest reporting. I joined CITI Program in 2024, but my career in research integrity spans over 18 years in higher education, where I’ve worked to promote ethical and responsible research practices.

As we move forward together, you can expect the same thoughtful discussions on topics that matter, from research misconduct and publication ethics to data sharing, mentorship, and beyond. We’ll continue to speak with experts, scientists, and policymakers who are navigating the ever-evolving landscape of scientific research and research integrity. Whether you’re a scientist, a research administrator, a student, a policymaker, or just someone who cares deeply about how knowledge is created and shared, we’re glad you’re here.

Before we get started, I want to quickly note that this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not designed to provide legal advice or legal guidance. You should consult with your organization’s attorneys if you have questions or concerns about the relevant laws and regulations that may be discussed in this podcast. In addition, the views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests. Today’s episode is a special one.

We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of CITI Program, a trailblazer in research, compliance, ethics, and integrity. To mark this incredible milestone, we’re joined by a panel of long-time employees, people who’ve not only witnessed the evolution of the company firsthand but helped build its legacy from the ground up. Over the next few minutes, we’ll look back at the early days, reflect on key changes in the industry, and hear what this journey has meant to them personally.

Whether you’re new to the field or a seasoned professional, this conversation of the chance to hear about the heart, history, and future of a company that dedicated 25 years to advancing ethical research and compliance. Let me start by introducing our guests for today’s discussion. With us are Jaime Arango, vice president of Content Education, Daniel Smith, director of Content and Education, and Adiper Bello, director of Operations and Support. Welcome everybody.

Jaime Arango: Thanks, Alexa. Great to be here.

Alexa McClellan: To begin with, I’d like to ask our panelists to introduce yourselves. Tell us how long you’ve been with CITI program and what roles you’ve had with the company over time. Adiper, we’ll start with you and then Jaime and Daniel.

Adiper Bello: Thank you, Alexa. As you mentioned, am Adiper Bello and I am the director of operations and support. I started with CITI in November 2006, so basically next year, 2026, it’ll be my 20 year with CITI. And I started as a coordinator, believe it or not.

And I was a fresh graduate from college, and I actually didn’t even have a clue what research ethics was or anything like that because I came from the business world, more business administration rather than anything related to medical or clinical.

I started back in the days when CITI was part of the University of Miami at that point, and it’s been quite an interesting, fun, and very educational journey for me. Pretty exciting and pretty grateful actually to be part of CITI Program and to celebrate the 25th anniversary.

Alexa McClellan: Great. Jaime?

Jaime Arango: So, I am Jaime Arango, and I am the vice president of Content and Education at the CITI Program. I also chair the Program Advisory Committee. I have been at CITI since 2011, and I started as then the position was assistant director of Good Clinical Practice and Human Subjects. And over time, I went up to being the director of all of the content and then now the vice president.

Alexa McClellan: Thank you. Daniel.

Daniel Smith: And I’m Daniel Smith, as Alexa mentioned, the director of Content and Education. And I started with CITI Program in 2012 as a communication specialist, and I had the good fortune of working under Jaime Arango, which kind of led my long journey to my position now, which is director of Content and Education.

Alexa McClellan: All right. What a great group of people. Thank you so much. Again, there is so much combined expertise in this panel. I’m so excited to hear your stories. To get started, I wanted to ask about what CITI Program stands for first and what inspired the founding of the company 25 years ago.

Jaime Arango: So, the CITI stands for Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative. But originally, and I think Ady can correct me if I’m wrong, but I want to remember the days when the I stood for IRB because we originally started as meeting the IRB training requirements. So, it was collaborative IRB training initiative, and then it evolved itself over time.

Alexa McClellan: Fascinating. So I have a deep question to begin with. This is something that I had a question for when I joined the company, and I think our audience also would like to have clarification. So is it okay to say CITI Program, or should we be saying CITI Program?

Jaime Arango: I think it kind of depends on how long you’ve known about us. It used to be CITI, and there are… now, as you know, there are many other cities, including the financial enterprise… the financial company, and so we use CITI as the initials, but I think it’s fine to call us either way, truthfully.

Alexa McClellan: That’s so good to know because I have had a number of people already when I talk about where I work say, “Oh, are you with the financial institution?” And I have clarified, “No, no, no, no.”

Jaime Arango: Not related. No.

Alexa McClellan: So you talked about the initial mission being in regard to IRB regulations, the Institutional Review Board. How has that evolved over the years? What is our mission now, and how has it changed? Daniel, maybe you’ll speak to that.

Daniel Smith: Yeah, absolutely. So I still think that that’s central to our longstanding mission, and I think that’s seen through our commitment to content areas like human subjects research, animal care and use, and responsible conduct of research.

However, in more recent years, we’ve broadened our mission to serve the broader needs of colleges and universities, healthcare institutions, technology and research organizations, and government agencies, particularly as they look to foster integrity and the professional advancement of their learners, which is our term for staff, students, other affiliates at an institution.

And some examples of how we’ve broadened into those areas is that we now offer still our foundational research content, like I just mentioned. But we have training solutions in clinical research, research analysis and design, health and safety, higher education, healthcare, biomanufacturing, and science fairs.

Alexa McClellan: Wow. That’s really expanded. And so the subscribing institutions have really moved not just in higher education but into industry as well. That’s great. So now that we’ve set the stage with how CITI Program began let’s take a moment to look at the path that it’s taken along the way. So Daniel, maybe you can speak to this, but what are some of the most pivotal moments in the company’s history?

Daniel Smith: Yeah, absolutely. And I should preface this by saying there’s a very nice interactive timeline on our website for our visual people out there. So maybe we can drop a link to that in the show notes so people can follow along as they’re listening. And there’s many moments on there, but I’ll just highlight just a few. So, as Jaime mentioned, we were founded in response to the need for IRB training. So that was in the year 2000 when NIH introduced the requirement for human subjects research training.

And because of that, initially, we only offered human subjects training focused on biomedical research. And then later, four years later, in 2004, we launched our human subjects research training focused on social behavioral educational research. And then, there was a few more courses launched in there, but by 2010, we had added good clinical practice, responsible conduct of research, animal care and use, and biosafety and biosecurity.

And those still, as I mentioned, we have a core commitment to those areas. Many people use us for those content areas, and we have kept them running for about over 25 years now. So that’s up till 2010. But the next 10 years really marked a period of significant growth for our program. Notably, we started offering continuing education credits for certain courses. We launched a new version of our LMS. That’s short for Learning Management System. And, of course, we continue to launch new courses and update our existing courses.

But perhaps most notably, CITI program joined BRANY in 2016, which marked the beginning of a new chapter for our program. So going back to what I was saying earlier, joining BRANY has allowed us to continue our longstanding mission of providing high-quality education to various research communities while also expanding in many impactful ways. For example, I noted all the different training solutions we now offer, and with those, we now serve the training needs of more types of organizations and learners.

In addition, our content is now available in various formats, including text, audio, visual, and video. And we have three different new podcasts, one of which you’re listening to right now. And on top of all of that, we now have various partnerships with different organizations and government agencies to deliver their content via CITI Program. For example, I mentioned our biomanufacturing solution earlier, and these courses are all developed by Biotility at the University of Florida, which is one of our licensing partners.

Jaime Arango: I want to just add a little bit to the really detailed history that Daniel gave there in that it emphasizes across that continuum. So CITI Program was created as a result of the HHS requirement instituted by Donna Shalala.

At the time, she was Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton that required training on human subjects sadly as a result of the death of the human subject in a clinical trial. The way CITI started, it started as the collaboration. It wasn’t just a cute name that we came up with. Really, CITI was created as a result of the need that existed at predominantly at that time higher ed institutions.

And it brought together 10 institutions that volunteered the time of their professionals who were overseeing research with human subjects to craft the initial content that became CITI. The animal content that later came was thanks to the VA and thanks to the relationships that we had with individuals in the animal care community who contributed content. And as Daniel mentioned, we started with biomedical human subjects and later came the social behavioral education, and that was the result of contributions.

And I do want to mention folks like Lorna Hicks, who was at Duke, who contributed the content. We should mention, and we didn’t at the start of the podcast, that we should recognize Paul Braunschweiger, who was a founder of the CITI Program, along with Karen Hansen, who was at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center because they really worked together to bring the idea of CITI to life.

And so it’s thanks to those folks who’ve consistently and to this day contribute to the content we deliver, contribute ideas to where we approach content and topics that we’ve been able to grow and meet the needs of organizations. We reflect, I think, the organizations that use CITI.

Alexa McClellan: Jaime, you mentioned that this started to fill a need to provide training in IRB regulations. And I’m curious how the landscape of research compliance has changed since the company started and what needs you’re seeing now.

Jaime Arango: Well, sure. It’s changed a lot. Obviously, we’ve seen that research, which was, for a long period of time, historically housed in institutions of higher education in many cases and in academic medical centers, has expanded to different research settings. I think that’s a really big change.

We certainly are seeing that change again now with institutions navigating the funding structures and changes in funding structures. And I think we’re going to see more shifting in that space, looking to other sources of funding and support for the research that they want to do. So I think those are two big things that have changed.

Clearly the research has changed, and AI has been a significant change now. And I think organizations both in the academic settings but in non are also wrestling with what AI, and Daniel can certainly speak more to AI since he’s done so much work with it, that they are now wrestling with what does this mean for the research enterprise.

Where is it okay for it to be in research? Where is it maybe not okay for it to be involved in research? And I think that’s as one of the speakers that Daniel’s had on his podcast, it’s a squishy area, and we don’t know what we don’t know, and we’re still trying to all figure that out. So I think those are some of the major ones we’ve seen.

Alexa McClellan: Let’s take a moment and just make sure that the audience is aware that Daniel does host a podcast for CITI Program as well on tech ethics. So, certainly, if you’re interested in AI and how that’s the landscape, I know Daniel’s done some great content with some podcast episodes on that topic.

So, Ady, I want to bring you into the conversation and pick your brain about memories that you have since you’ve been an employee for such a long time. Are there any then versus now stories that really illustrate how far the company has come and changed?

Adiper Bello: Oh my goodness, yes. I can tell you that since I started in 2006, we had one technician and myself when I first started. And Dr. Braunschweiger used to be the person who set up the organization, just to give you an idea, then he hired me because, of course, he couldn’t do it all. And we had one person just to answer the phones, and then he used to take care of the setup and then he would send me to different conferences.

And I still remember to this day, my first conference that I attended as an exhibitor was to our AHRD conference in Minneapolis on a February. And it was snowing so bad and it was so cold we didn’t even have a banner with CITI name on it or a tablecloth. So for me, it was a lot of a learning curve, but to see a grow, if I look back of when I started, for example, to now, I mean, the difference is huge.

And also the number of calls. Of course, when I first started, we had less than, I want to say, around a hundred clients, if that, or 150. You didn’t get many calls or requests from customer because they didn’t know about CITI. And then, of course, as we went to different conferences, or Dr. Braunschweiger used to be pulled to talk about research ethics a lot.

And then, at that point, he will introduce this small project that he had going on with Karen as Jaime mentioned, and then more and more people heard about it, and that’s how they joined. So now we over 2000 clients, it’s remarkable to see the growth, not only internal with employees. When first started… I first started, it was only two employees, and then now we have almost 50. So for me, I’ve been able to see the growth of CITI tremendously.

Alexa McClellan: Mm-hmm. Does anyone else have any stories they want to share about how things used to be versus how they are now?

Jaime Arango: Well, Ady was the first person I saw when I went for my interview. I’m not sure she would’ve hired me. And then what I didn’t realize after I was hired is that it was then me and Ady who had to go to all the conferences. For a couple of years, it was every month of travel. That definitely is changing.

In addition to contents, evolution areas such as sales and marketing and finance and all the other, and the customer support team, and the help desk, all those areas have also matured and grown with CITI. So that is certainly a difference from back then.

Adiper Bello: And I failed to say at the beginning that through my journey in CITI, I have… wore different hats. At some point, I was the head of [inaudible 00:18:00], at another point, I was part of marketing with Daniel. We used to work together.

And another point I used to be the HR Generalist of CITI Program. I have worn multiple hats through my journey. So yeah, it has grown a lot, definitely. And to see I now have so many different teams is remarkable.

Alexa McClellan: So, looking back is fascinating, and I love sharing these stories, but CITI Program has also been a force in shaping the future. And I’m curious, what innovations or initiatives is CITI Program most proud of over the past 25 years? Daniel, maybe we’ll start with you.

Daniel Smith: So, I think, for me, the initiative that I’m most proud of when I look back in the last 25 years or the last 13 years that I’ve been here is just our unwavering commitment to providing high-quality education to institutions and learners. So I talked quite a bit about… earlier about all of the courses that we’ve launched and things like that.

But the other component of that that I’m very proud of is all of the work that we’ve put into keeping our content up to date as new regulations emerge and new things emerge, like AI, just so that our existing content continues to meet the needs of the learners and the institutions that we serve, while we’re also looking to build new content for new audiences or new types of learners or just on new topics.

So I think that those two things together, the new content that we’ve put out and how we’ve kept things updated over the years, is what I’m most proud of.

Alexa McClellan: Yeah. I think specifically of the 2018, change it to the common rule for IRB regulations. At that time, I was a administrator in a university and actually with administering CITI Programs content on our campus, and I remember really appreciating CITI’s content in that area.

It was really helpful as I was wrestling with how those regulations were changing and what my institution had to do to keep up and meet those requirements. So keeping things accurate, I think, is a real benefit. And the real important part of what CITI Program offers.

Adiper Bello: I was just going to add, is how fast now we sort of react to, let’s say, the new regulations or to stay in compliance. Something that comes to mind, for example, is during COVID, how we were so fast to put together, of course, basically to help all these organizations to train their students, and we did it with the American Medical College Association.

Jaime Arango: AAMC.

Adiper Bello: AAMC. Yes. And we did it in such a short period of time to put all of that together, and meanwhile, everybody was trying to see what to do, how to direct their students, and so on. And we were able to help the community in a very short period of time and fast. That’s just one instance.

Alexa McClellan: When you talk about COVID, that I think leads us nicely into our next question, which is, have you seen a shift in how institutions utilize CITI Program over the past years? And I speak specifically because in COVID, everything went remote, and that would mean in-person training might have fallen off. It was not as possible. So, I could see how CITI Program’s content, being a remote option, may have been utilized more heavily.

Jaime Arango: I do think that the COVID pandemic emphasized to organizations the value that CITI had in that it was remote. CITI has got sort of this hybrid, maybe hybrid is not the best choice but words, but it is both not part of institutions, but is part of institutions. And I think it’s we been to so many departments at institution that I think the pandemic allowed institutions for at least some of the research pieces to say, “Okay, the training is covered” because CITI is there, and we don’t have to do the in-person.

We’re able to rely on CITI to provide that support and to not waver. We were very fortunate that CITI was 50%, 60% already remote. So, the pandemic, we really completed that cycle and became remote and were able to… We didn’t miss a day. I remember walking out of the office, and the next day, the memo was we’re not coming back to the office. And it’s like, “Okay, well, we’re just work from home because we have all women, and we can, so it’s what we did.”

But I do think that the pandemic, it reminded institutions that we provide a service that’s there for them and that can respond when these kinds of seismic changes occur. As you mentioned, the common rule, that was a change that although took a while, we knew it was coming, we just weren’t clear on when. There are some other changes that come through that are a surprise, but that I think is also a in CITI is that because we work so well with people in the community together, we adjust, we respond to those effects.

Alexa McClellan: Yeah. You talk about how the people and the culture really helps CITI Program respond to those sort of unexpected changes and the expected changes, and I want to spend some time talking about the people and culture because behind every milestone and initiative is a team of dedicated people. So what role have company culture played in sustaining success over the past 25 years?

Jaime Arango: I think one piece of it is that you’ll remember the CITI I mentioned was the brainchild of Paul Braunschweiger and Karen Hansen, and so that’s a research… cancer research enterprise and the University of Miami. And so I think CITI has always had this culture of a academic cooperative, collaborative kind of style. And I think we’ve always had that internally as well, even when we’re a small group.

Now, we’re a much larger group, but characteristically, we still behave in some of those same manners. In terms of even crossing the divisional lines within a larger company that we are, many of the content folks travel with sales and marketing so that they’re together at booths to hear from customers to talk about what is new, to get ideas we can bring to the family of content.

My experience after so long at CITI is that when someone comes to the booth with a pain point, it’s unlikely they’re the only institution that has that pain point. So it’s a good start, and to know that they’re comfortable to come to us and say, “Hey, we need this because we’re suffering that” is part of that trust, and it’s reflected inside the folks who work at CITI.

Adiper Bello: And to add to that, we try to keep the team together. We try to do a lot of activities together. We try to bring ourselves a couple of times in a year together to different activities, either corporate runs or we go bowling or we do picnics, or holiday lunch. And kind of like being with each other, it helps a lot on our culture.

You get to know more the person that you spent the majority of your time with, right, and more now that we work remotely because when you work remotely, kind of like lose a little bit of that touch when you’re in an office setting. But in our case, actually, it’s the reverse. People look forward to this event because we hardly see each other in person.

So we have a very high turnaround when we do events together. And I must say, I’ve been with CITI for almost 20 years and our turnaround, you know, people that leaves is very, very low. And you could see it all around. The different teams that are formed, you will find two to three people that have been with the company for more than 10 years, and that should speak by itself, well, how the culture is in a company.

Jaime Arango: I was going to say, I think the other thing, what Ady mentioned is the experience that I’ve had, and I think everybody who represents CITI, who goes out into conferences to meet with customers, is that overarchingly it’s… Well, first of all, there are real people behind CITI.

It’s a little bit surprise and that in the content space, there are people who reflect the experience needed to develop the content and work with subject matter experts, et cetera. But I think there’s also the opportunity to say they are thankful that we’re there, right. There’s that, again, back to the collaborative piece in the name is that reflection from the customer base that, “We recognize that you are here,” and they value us for that.

Alexa McClellan: Now that we’ve covered the journey so far, let’s talk about what’s on the horizon for CITI Program. What are the biggest challenges I’ve had for research compliance?

Jaime Arango: I think that, first and foremost, the changes in D.C. is something that we’re going to see, and that’s going to be a challenge for research compliance because there’s just the changes that occur naturally when there’s a new administration and those kinds of pieces. I think the changes in D.C. also reflect more global changes, keeping up with competition between countries and that kind of space.

We’ve seen obviously the issue of research security take a strong role and is the focus in many organizations in the US in particular. So I think that’s going to affect research compliance and what that means in terms of really, in some ways, a new profession. Research security is when I saw it… when I saw the first pieces sort of come to life a couple of years ago, I thought, “Oh, they’re going to have to add an I to IRB, IACUC, IBC.” We’re not come up with a letter, but for now, it looks like it’s RS for Research Security.

But all kidding aside, I do think that it is going to continue to develop. I think there is so much funding that goes into research on the creation side, but there’s also so much… so many implications on a financial scale on the output side of research that it’s going to be of concern. So I do think research security will continue to be a compliance piece that is going to still take up a lot of attention and energy at organizations that need to address it.

Alexa McClellan: How is the company preparing for that new future? You talked about AI and globalization regulation uncertainty. What will CITI Program do to be able to meet that need looking forward?

Daniel Smith: Yeah, I think that going back to what I have been saying throughout this conversation, I think we’re really just well positioned to do that because, as we’ve talked about, it’s what we’ve been doing for 25 years now, and that is keeping our finger on the pulse of what’s going and then developing and updating content that institutions trust they’ll be able to train their people on. So an example of that is AI that we’ve talked about.

We already have a lot of great content available on AI, and we’re adding more. And similarly, with research security, as Jaime was just mentioning, we have many different offerings tailored towards different needs within institutions of how they can fulfill the research security training requirements. So I think just in general, what we’ve been doing for years will continue to do, and people can look to us to help them navigate these evolving and challenging times.

Alexa McClellan: Mm-hmm.

Jaime Arango: To piggyback a little bit on Daniel’s comment, there is that I think we also, because subject matter experts in these spaces are developing, some already exist, but they’re also new people that have an interest and are entering these spaces, they view us as that member of their organization, member of their institution, right.

So we’re also a logical place for some of those subject matter experts to come to us and say, “I’m an AI expert. Here’s that AI.” And academic integrity is a good example that we’ve tackled. We know that there are other organizations that also face these same issues. I want to contribute to the field, and CITI can be the avenue for that contribution or one of the avenues, I should say.

Alexa McClellan: Mm-hmm. As a repository of knowledge and expertise. So to close things out, I want to add a more personal note to this conversation. And Ady, I want to direct this question to you specifically, but if you could send a message back to the company’s founders in year one, what would you say to them?

Adiper Bello: What I would say to the founders. I would say you guys should be super proud of your creation of CITI. You should be super happy where CITI is today, which is probably beyond what you thought at the beginning when you had a vision on training, training needs out there for your own organizations. And look where it is right now.

I mean, you guys put CITI in the map as the main platform or train new program in the research community. And if you think about it, how many students have graduated from a college in the United States or outside of the United States, and they took CITI? So it’s like a part of you goes with each one of those students, so you should be super proud of what you created. That’s what I’ll say.

Alexa McClellan: I heard over and over that CITI Program is really mission-focused. And although it’s moved on from its role at the University of Miami, it still feels like the purpose is one of promoting research ethics and being a service institution more so than a for-profit company, right. I’m so proud about that, and I hear that pride in your voice as well, Ady, when you say that. So, for the entire panel, as a wrap-up question, what does celebrating 25 years mean to you personally?

Adiper Bello: Well, I think it means for me, I mean, 20, 25 years is not something very lightly. It’s like, wow. It’s a super milestone accomplished. I can speak on behalf of the team. You should be proud of all the work that we put together, all your efforts answering to customer needs or creating new content because we need to be in compliance with the federal government and how you take it as part of you.

I think that this is a time for us to celebrate as a team and to look back and see where we at today. And I think it’s remarkable, and I have to say great job to everybody. And that includes each author that has come and has contributed a piece of them towards CITI.

Daniel Smith: And I think for me very, simply, it just leaves me feeling energized for what the next 25 years will look like. Obviously, we’ve done a lot in the past 25 years.

We mentioned we started with one course, we had one employee, and now we have many employees and many courses, and the regulations are changing, and the whole landscape of research compliance is evolving, and new technologies that are emerging and things like that.

So I think there’s just many opportunities, and it’ll be interesting for me to see what we’ll be talking about in the 50th year anniversary.

Jaime Arango: For me, the 25 years, it’s a mixture of feelings. When I joined CITI, many of the individuals who contributed to CITI were pillars in the field that I was in human subjects protection, which I neglected to mention in my intro. And so it was… I was a little bit starstruck when I joined CITI, and so many of those folks have retired, and sadly, some of those folks have passed away.

And it was, for me, the 14 years that I have been with CITI has been an opportunity to really work with people that I very much respect that I think are super smart, and have had an opportunity to be able to do that. I think now, in the next 25, I’m excited to see new folks come through these professions and with energy and zest and wanting to tackle lots of the challenges that many of us still have. Some of these challenges haven’t changed, and all the new challenges that come with the changes in technology and politics and et cetera. So I think that’s exciting.

The other piece for me over looking at the total 25 and then where we go next is the realization that so many people who do research or teach or work with human subjects, animal subjects, all those areas that we have been known for but are also entering, have such a down the road, down the stream impact. That, to me, is always… it’s a little intimidating to think about how many folks come through CITI for training and then go out and do great things. And that’s really a treat, but it’s a responsibility that we have.

Alexa McClellan: Well, that brings us to the end of this special 25th-anniversary episode. A huge thank you to our panelists for sharing your stories, insights, and memories today. It’s been such a treat hearing you talk and listening to your stories.

Alexa McClellan: Thank you, Alexa.

Daniel Smith: Thank you.

Adiper Bello: Thank you, Alexa.

Alexa McClellan: It’s clear that CITI Programs impact over the past 25 years have been driven by the passion and dedication of the people behind it. And as the company looks toward the future, it’s inspiring to know that the same spirit of integrity and innovation is still going strong. Thanks for joining us today.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with the colleague, and stay tuned for more conversations that celebrate scientific research and the people who keep research ethical, responsible, and impactful.

I also invite everyone to visit CITIProgram.org to learn more about our courses, webinars, and other podcasts. Cynthia Bellas is our guest experience producer, and Evelyn Fornell is our line producer. And thank you to Megan Stuart and Raymond Longaray for production and distribution help. Thanks so much for listening.