{"id":52463,"date":"2017-11-20T11:56:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T16:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm\/?p=52463"},"modified":"2017-11-20T11:56:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T16:56:17","slug":"bu-promotes-diversity-in-stem-fields-with-nsf-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2017\/11\/20\/bu-promotes-diversity-in-stem-fields-with-nsf-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"BU Promotes Diversity in STEM Fields with NSF Grants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BU
BU has three National Science Foundation grants to promote diversity in STEM fields; the principal investigators are Linda Hyman, associate provost for the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (from left), Sarah Hokanson, director of professional development and postdoctoral affairs, and Pamela Templer, a CAS professor of biology. Hyman photo by Vernon Doucette. Hokanson photo by Dan Aguirre. Templer photo by Mike Spencer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As part of its mission to bring greater diversity to the nation\u2019s scientific workforce, the\u00a0<\/span>National Science Foundation<\/a>\u00a0(NSF) recently awarded a two-year $300,000 grant to the School of Medicine\u00a0to engage undergraduate students from underrepresented minorities and other disadvantaged groups in exploring career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outside of medicine.\u00a0<\/span>Linda Hyman<\/a>, associate provost for MED\u2019s Division of Graduate Medical Sciences and the principal investigator on the NSF grant, says such grants are needed because a great many students from underrepresented groups are unaware of opportunities in academia, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, science communication, science policy, and technology\/patent law.<\/p>\n

MED was one of 27 institutions to receive the award through the NSF\u2019s two-year-old\u00a0<\/span>Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science<\/a>\u00a0(INCLUDES) program, which is aimed at enhancing leadership in STEM discoveries and innovations through diversity and inclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe critical contributions of a diverse and inclusive community are essential to progress in all STEM fields,\u201d says Hyman, who is a MED professor of microbiology. \u201cBy promoting diversity in education, we hope to engage undergraduate students at a point in their professional development that could enable participation in a wide range of workforce opportunities, so as to advance the progress of science and national health. The underlying premise is that career exploration focused on opportunities that go beyond physician training will enable engagement of this community of learners in the life sciences network beyond the premed track, and keep them engaged in degree completion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hyman is co\u2013principal investigator with\u00a0<\/span>Barbara Schreiber<\/a>, a MED associate professor of biochemistry, of BU\u2019s National Institutes of Health\u2013funded\u00a0<\/span>Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training<\/a>\u00a0(BEST) program, which is aimed at helping postdocs and grad students explore STEM careers outside of medicine. With the INCLUDES grant, BU will lead a network of four other BEST research institutions\u2014Cornell University, Wayne State University, the University of Colorado, Denver, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u2014in helping undergraduate students from four selected schools with large numbers of underrepresented minorities to explore careers in STEM. Those schools are the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, which has many socioeconomically disadvantaged, first-generation college students; two historically black colleges\u2014Shaw University, in North Carolina, and Xavier University of Louisiana; and the University of Puerto Rico at Carolina. These schools\u2019 students will be invited to visit BU and the other BEST institutions to get hands-on experience in labs and meet and shadow scientists in academia and industry. They will also be offered help in applying to graduate school.<\/p>\n

Many students at UMass Lowell are interested in the life sciences and have aspirations of working in the region\u2019s biotech industry, says\u00a0<\/span>Matthew A. Nugent<\/a>, UMass Lowell\u2019s\u00a0Kennedy College of Sciences associate dean for research, innovation, and partnerships. But, Nugent says, few students know anything about what these jobs\u2014or any jobs in research\u2014entail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are students who are smart and eager to work hard, but they don\u2019t have the social capital to even know that this is a thing,\u201d he says. \u201cI meet students on a one-to-one basis and their eyes are opened when I tell them that people in PhD programs actually get paid and get free tuition. We have really dedicated faculty, but each of them might have 30 or 40 advisees, and they\u2019re teaching classes, and they\u2019re trying to do research. They can\u2019t create 20 student research projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new BU BEST NSF\u2013funded project\u2014called BEST BET, for Beginning Enhancement Track\u2014is an opportunity to expose UMass Lowell\u00a0<\/span>undergraduates to \u201cwhat the research experience is, what a PhD student is,\u201d Nugent says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just going to classes\u2014it\u2019s doing real stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Xavier University of Louisiana,\u00a0<\/span>Kelly Johanson<\/a>, an associate professor of chemistry, is part of a faculty team working to engage undergraduates from diverse backgrounds in exploring\u00a0biomedical\u00a0research careers through a national, NIH-funded\u00a0<\/span>Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(BUILD) initiative. Xavier, which already partners with BU through BUILD and BU\u2019s BEST BET, will offer additional opportunities for Xavier students to learn firsthand about research careers, says Johanson.<\/p>\n

\"COM-joshua
Josiah Sherman, an undergraduate majoring in biology at Xavier University, explaining his research at Xavier\u2019s 2017 summer research symposium. Photo courtesy of Xavier University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s nice about BU\u2019s BEST BET is that it exposes students to different types of careers other than just traditional professor,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have students who are interested in biomedical research, but we don\u2019t have much of that down here. We don\u2019t have somewhere down the street to show them: this is what you can do, these are the possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the INCLUDES grant, BU has received two NSF awards to promote diversity in STEM fields. The University is one of nine institutions sharing a five-year, $2 million\u00a0<\/span>Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(AGEP) grant to study and improve pathways to STEM careers for students, postdocs, and faculty who are underrepresented minorities and from other disadvantaged groups. BU\u2019s portion of the grant amounts to $174,000 over five years.<\/p>\n

Iowa State University will lead the AGEP grant. The other seven are Cornell, Howard University, Northwestern University, University of Georgia, University of Buffalo, University of Texas, and University of Maryland, College Park. These institutions, as well as BU, are all members of the\u00a0<\/span>Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning<\/a>\u00a0(CIRTL), a consortium of 43 research universities committed to preparing the next generation of STEM faculty.<\/p>\n

Sarah Hokanson<\/a>\u00a0(CAS\u201905), BU director of professional development and postdoctoral affairs, is the principal investigator on the AGEP grant for BU.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring that the next generation of faculty fully reflects the diversity in race, gender, culture, and intellectual talent across the United States is an important challenge facing all of higher education,\u201d says Hokanson. \u201cBeing a part of the CIRTL AGEP alliance is an exciting opportunity for BU to partner with our peers to strengthen the mentoring relationships between faculty and trainees, improving our research and teaching climates and retaining\u00a0graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the academic pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other current BU initiatives aimed at engaging underrepresented students include a project run by\u00a0<\/span>Pamela Templer<\/a>, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of biology, with other CAS and School of Public Health faculty. Templer is the principal investigator on a $3 million, five-year NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) grant to train graduate students from the interdisciplinary PhD programs in biogeoscience at the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and in environmental health at SPH\u2014with a push to target students from underrepresented groups\u2014in tackling some of the major environmental challenges facing cities.\u00a0<\/span>Lucy Hutyra<\/a>, a CAS associate professor of earth and environment, and\u00a0<\/span>Jonathan Levy<\/a>, an SPH professor of environmental health, are co\u2013principal investigators on the NRT grant.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0<\/span>BU Today<\/em>\u00a0story was written by\u00a0<\/span>Sara Rimer<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At BUSM, students from underrepresented groups learn about careers beyond medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[157,91,143],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52463"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52475,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463\/revisions\/52475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}