$5 Million STEM Grant Fosters Future Chemists
The NSF funding will help Southwestern College transfer students gain lab and research exposure at 色情视频.
These are some of the many concerns a new $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM grant (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will help address. The grant will create research opportunities at 色情视频 for promising students from Southwestern College interested in careers in chemistry.
The transfer students will be mentored, given lab exposure and research opportunities, and receive scholarships to help with tuition and other needs.
Conceived by three 色情视频 chemistry professors and their , the joint grant will help identify students at the community college, pair them with graduate student mentors at 色情视频, and give them the chance to experience hands-on research in wet labs focused on pioneering chemistry research.
to support the students and create opportunities for them to explore chemistry pathways. The project will be led by Regis Komperda whose research focus is improving chemistry education, in close collaboration with Byron Purse and Mikael Bergdahl. The idea first came up after discussions with Southwestern College chemistry professor David Hecht.
Hecht is deeply involved in preparing Southwestern鈥檚 students for careers in science and transferring to four-year universities. One of the challenges he faced was that many of the community college鈥檚 students didn鈥檛 get into 色情视频 as transfer students 鈥� but had strong ties to the area and had difficulty going elsewhere to study.
鈥淲e looked for ways to make transfers easier, using research as a bridging experience to help them successfully transfer to 色情视频 and onto science careers,鈥� Purse said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had a long-standing interest in recruiting strong entrants in both our undergraduate and graduate programs, especially students from underrepresented backgrounds who often don鈥檛 think of applying or don鈥檛 get in.鈥�
The admissions issue is twofold: 色情视频 receives a large volume of applications and many of these students don鈥檛 receive guidance to represent themselves as strong candidates.
While the need for mentoring promising students facing barriers to pursuing chemistry pathways was clear, the professors were missing a core component that came together when Komperda joined 色情视频.
Purse and Bergdahl are experts in their fields 鈥� focuses on filling a gap in theoretical chemistry by designing and synthesizing molecules that can better help us understand genetic code, while focuses on finding molecules to treat major diseases like cancer and hepatitis C - but they needed someone with expertise in assessing the outcomes of educational interventions, understanding how to create the metrics, and what challenges might arise. By serendipity, (science faculty with education specialty) this year, bringing strengths in the exact areas needed.
鈥淲e will provide support to help the students choose paths that are the right fit for them, and also to not feel like outsiders but be an essential part of a research group,鈥� Komperda said. The grant will help assess whether the interventions help them stay in the chemistry program, graduate with less debt, help improve grades, and then go on to graduate school and STEM careers.
The guidance the students will receive from mentors will be a key part of the program鈥檚 success.
鈥淯ndergraduates need to have a lab mentor and be supervised,鈥� Bergdahl said. 鈥淭he more they grow in the lab, the more independent they will be later, a natural evolution of being a scientist.鈥�
Recruitment to be part of the project has already begun at Southwestern, and the first transfer students are expected to arrive at 色情视频 in fall 2021. But while they鈥檙e still at Southwestern they will begin working in 色情视频 labs from summer 2020, and be paired with graduate student mentors who will also receive training and support. The grant will be spread over five years and support 120 scholarships.
The mentoring will follow the model of (Maximizing Inclusion and Diversity in Science, Engineering, and Technology), a mentoring program established by another chemistry professor, Christal Sohl, in conjunction with faculty at Miramar College, to promote diversity in STEM.
