NSF Award
0223772
Mark S. Spector, Naval Research Laboratory<br/><br/>"Minority Research Opportunities in Science and Engineering at the Naval Research Laboratory"<br/><br/>Due to cultural and historic barriers, minorities continue to be underrepresented in science, mathematics, and engineering. Despite some growth in the number of minorities receiving undergraduate degrees in science and engineering, there has been little increase in the number of minorities at the doctoral level. It is essential for the scientific community to provide training opportunities and role models for promising young students in order to encourage them to pursue advanced degrees in science, mathematics, and engineering and careers in research. The Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering (CBMSE) at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed a summer internship program for minority students that give the interns the opportunity to experience professional laboratory research first hand. Participation is essentially focused on undergraduates at the nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities (HBCU/MI/TCU's). While there are several programs that provide support for students pursuing careers in health care, this program focuses uniquely on training future scientists and engineers.<br/><br/>Based upon previous success, it is proposed to renew the program. It is proposes to increase the number of summer internships to approximately fifteen per year by placing interns in the NRL's Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering, Physical Metallurgy Branch, and Surface Modification Branch and increasing our recruiting effort to pursue students at additional HBCU/MI/TCU's. It is also proposed to support up to five students per year to continue their research at their home institute during the following school year as part of a collaborative effort between NRL scientists and faculty members at HCBU/MI/TCU's.<br/><br/>The broader impact of this activity is highlighted by the accomplishments already made. During the first ten years of the program, ninety-three outstanding students have spent ten weeks working at the Naval Research Laboratory on exciting projects at the leading edge of science and technology. This has included 48 women and 45 men from a variety of scientific disciplines: Biology, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Of the students who have completed their undergraduate degrees, many have gone on to receive master's degrees and approximately twenty are currently in doctoral programs.
