NSF Award
2319428
A new research and education partnership in astronomy called OAKS (explOration of Astronomy by Kentucky Students) will be developed to improve access for rural minority students to opportunities in astrophysical research across the Kentucky Commonwealth. The partners are rural serving institutions such as Moorehead State and Berea University, and the astrophysics research departments of the Northern Kentucky University and the University of Louisville. The program will pilot a substantive and sustainable partnership spanning Kentucky to provide personalized mentoring, financial and academic support to KY undergraduates, plus the resources and opportunities to further their research and engage with the astronomical community on a national level. This will help to lower barriers to access such as finances, the hidden curriculum of academia, and familiarity with the basic tools of research.<br/><br/>Professional astronomers are dispersed throughout the state in small physics departments but have banded together in the Kentucky Area Astronomical Society (KAAS). Under the KAAS umbrella, faculty have organized shared summer online classes on specific astronomical topics and the Kentucky Area Meeting. OAKS will build on these collaborations to support early student research, including a first project, a first presentation at a professional meeting and a first paper. Kentucky has some of the poorest counties in the continental United States and substantial numbers of students from these backgrounds are attending university at one of its state schools, often as the first in their family. Such students are the primary target of the program. This project is jointly funded by the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
