The Data Science for Dynamic Intervention Decision-Making Center will launch a new training program to prepare scientists to design and evaluate adaptive, patient-centered interventions across the cancer care continuum.

The d3center at the Institute for Social Research, in partnership with the Rogel Cancer Center, will use a five-year, $1.47 million award from the National Cancer Institute to launch the training program MAPCI, or Methods for Adapting and Personalizing Cancer Control Interventions.
MAPCI will be co-led by Billie Nahum-Shani, director of the d3center and collegiate research professor in ISR’s Survey Research Center, and Christopher R. Friese, the Elizabeth Tone Hosmer Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing; professor of health management and policy in the School of Public Health; and vice provost for academic and faculty affairs.

Cancer prevention, treatment, survivorship and palliative care often require interventions that adapt to an individual’s changing needs and contexts. U-M scholars have helped to pioneer trial designs that inform and enable such personalization, including the Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial, or SMARt, and the Micro-Randomized Trial, or MRT, MAPCI will expand access to the skills researchers need to use these methods in oncology and cancer control.

“Research methods are the bridge between good ideas and better outcomes for patients,” Nahum-Shani said. “With MAPCI, we’re equipping researchers and practitioners with the data science tools to learn when, for whom, and under what circumstances an intervention works — and to act on that knowledge.”

Program highlights include:

• Free online short course. Foundations of adaptive interventions and the study designs used to build them, available broadly to the community.
• In-person institute each February in Ann Arbor. A week-long, hands-on program for 30 competitively selected fellows focused on designing rigorous, patient-centered studies.
• Ongoing skill-building and mentorship. Practical support to turn ideas into grant-ready studies and competitive NIH applications.

Applications for the in-person institute are open through Nov. 14, with decisions delivered Nov. 24. The institute in Ann Arbor is Feb. 24-27, 2026. It is open to researchers with a cancer-control focus, including prevention, treatment, survivorship and palliative care, and more than one year of graduate-level statistics. The in-person institute is free of charge to selected participants.

MAPCI is designed as a working bridge between methodologists, domain researchers and frontline practitioners. By putting shared tools, a common vocabulary, and real cancer-care use cases at the center of training, the program helps teams move from promising ideas to implementable study plans and, ultimately, to practice changes that improve patient outcomes.

“Improving cancer outcomes isn’t only about what we deliver — it’s about how we learn and adapt,” Friese said. “By pairing methodological rigor with clinical realities, MAPCI will help teams design interventions that better align with patients’ lives and clinicians’ preferences.”

Contact: Ian Burnette