The Pomona College Human Subjects Protections Committee (Institutional Review Board) ensures compliance with federal and state regulations concerning the use of humans as research subjects. Committee members include an Associate Dean of the College and faculty members as well as a community representative. This committee serves as Pomona College's Institutional Review Board for all research involving human subjects on Pomona's campus or sponsored by Pomona College, including any externally sponsored research project wishing to recruit Pomona College students, staff or faculty. Researchers who plan research involving human subjects are required to submit their research protocol to the Pomona IRB for review.
The Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure works with the IRB. Researchers wishing to employ human subjects should notify the dean at an early stage in the project design about the need for IRB review. Not all research involving human subjects requires full review by the IRB, and, under federal regulations, some research may be exempt. However, this determination should be made by the IRB, not the individual researcher.
In order to conduct research involving human subjects, the principle investigator (PI) and faculty mentor (in the case of a student PI) must complete training through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). The certificate of training should be included with the IRB review application, which is submitted to the Axiom (now Sitero) Mentor website. See Process Flow for IRB