Elba E. Serrano, Ph.D - US grants

New Mexico State University is assembling leading academic administrators from four Carnegie Doctoral/Research University Extensive institutions that are also either a minority serving institution (MSI) and/or an ADVANCE-funded institution. The working team of administrators will produce a publication tentatively titled "Effective Strategies to Diversify Academic STEM" and a Powerpoint presentation. These products will synthesize, in an accessible, efficient format the rich literature on gender, race/ethnicity and science and technology to provide concrete strategies for recruiting and retaining diverse students and faculty-especially women and minorities.

The publication and presentation will be produced over the course of a one-year writing project. Administrators will learn current research on diversity in higher education and then form writing groups in preparation for a retreat-style conference in Summer, 2005.

Dissemination will be accomplished in three ways:
1. All participants will agree to make presentations at a conference in their field during the 2006 calendar year.
2. The publication will be sent to the presidents, provosts and deans at all 151 Carnegie Doctoral/Research University Extensive institutions.
3. The NMSU ADVANCE web site, www.nmsu.edu/~advprog, will provide pdf versions of the documents.

Intellectual Merit
Deans and department heads play a critical role in bringing about institutional change within academia. Leaders at these levels must translate the broad goals and objectives of the institution framed by higher administration (including governing bodies like boards of regents) into concrete outcomes by developing strategies to encourage faculty members to behave in accordance with those goals and objectives. The project emphasizes communication among a diverse group of administrators and co-PIs to educate each other-and then their national peers-about how to diversify STEM fields, especially among the professoriate.

Broader Impacts
Ultimately, the project seeks to bring about changes within the participating institutions and at all 151 U.S. Carnegie Doctoral/Research University Extensive institutions. Information developed will be presented at 20 or more conferences in various disciplines-including higher education administration, and science and engineering disciplines-reaching broad audiences with concrete research-based information and strategies about how to recruit and retain women and minorities in science and engineering at all levels of academia.

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

This Major Research Instrumentation-Recovery and Reinvestment (MRI-R2) award funds the purchase of a confocal microscope to support a diverse array of research and teaching activities at New Mexico State University. The instrument will be housed in NMSU's centralized microscopy facilities and administered by the Electron Microscopy Laboratory to improve current and future research and training for the university and surrounding community. The new confocal microscope will support research in cellular and developmental biology, neurobiology, animal/microbial interactions, plant molecular biology, nanotechnology and chemical biology. The projects will take advantage of the microscope's ability to perform tandem scanning for live cell imaging, a spectral detector to separate overlapping spectra, which will be essential for applications requiring non-traditional excitation/emission spectra. The new system substantially broadens the research capacities of faculty members and of graduate and undergraduate students, enhancing careers in multiple scientific fields. The new instrumentation also offers significant opportunities for research training and education. The 18 participating investigators mentor over 100 graduate and undergraduate students, (60% female, 57% underrepresented minorities), and these numbers reflect a history of commitment to the recruitment and training of women and other underrepresented groups. The system will be used in support of educational and outreach activities including the continued offering of 2 courses, the introduction of confocal microscopy in other existing Biology courses and demonstrations for STEM programs aimed at recruiting and enhancing the research skills of women and underrepresented minority students and faculty at NMSU and throughout the state of New Mexico. The opportunity for students to use state-of the- art fluorescent imaging and analytical tools will profoundly impact their research projects, rendering them more competitive in gaining entry to top graduate programs or obtaining top postdoctoral positions. Data from the new system will be disseminated by publication in peer-reviewed journals, and by student and faculty presentations are regional or national meetings.

This is a small equipment proposal to purchase a rheometer (Discovery Series HR-2). Obtaining this instrument will advance emerging and established research at New Mexico State University (NMSU). The availability of a high-end instrument that can give accurate measurements for fluids that are more complex than water (e.g., polymers, pastes, biological fluids, suspensions etc.) will foster a rheology-centered community among the materials engineering research strengths at NMSU, and form the core of a multidisciplinary "Viscoelastic Measurement Laboratory?. Using the instrument will also support a number of research faculty who are working between the disciplines of fluid dynamics of complex fluids, chemistry, biological sciences, and engineering. NMSU is a Hispanic-serving Institution; therefore, the number of underrepresented minorities in STEM is quite large. Upon installing the instrument for use in research, the co-PIs will implement educational activities for undergraduates and graduate students with particular engagement of underrepresented minorities. The rheometer will be used in a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes. The equipment will also be used to provide technical workshops for graduate students through the NMSU NIH RISE program, reach out to the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, and to improve the interaction of faculty members with local industries in food processing, petrochemicals, refinery, plastics, and composites manufacturing - all of which impact regional economy.

The departments to be directly influenced include chemical engineering, food science and technology, chemistry and biochemistry, and biology. The research projects to be studied with the rheometer include (i) the dynamics of polymer chains during asymmetric phase separation, which is controlled by viscoelasticity, (ii) rheology of cells sorted through flow cytometry, (iii) the rheology of healthy and cancerous laboratory-cultured cells, (iv) rheology of mechanosensory organs and engineered neural cultures, and (v) interfacial rheology of a new emulsifier for food products derived from cotton seed meal.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The New Mexico State University RISE Program is diversifying the community of health scientists by supporting PhD degree completion by NMSU students who are members of groups underrepresented in biomedical/biobehavioral research. NMSU is able to achieve this goal because of the institution's unique status as a doctoral, research-intensive (NIH-INBRE), land grant, minority (Hispanic) serving university with a diverse student population and a cadre of accomplished mentors. Key outcomes of the twelve-year NMSU RISE research education program are: 87% retention to science careers after NMSU PhD completion; 97% retention to degree completion by NMSU PhD students; student-authored publications; achievement of student independent support; national recognition for student research excellence; and student entry to postdoctoral positions in R1 institutions. This application requests funds to continue to train twelve RISE to the Postdoctorate (RTP) graduate students yearly under RISE Option III. The Project Aims are: 1) RTP/MS will enable completion of the MS degree by 75% of the MS Scholars and their subsequent entry to PhD programs; 2) RTP/PhD will enable completion of a PhD by 90% of the PhD Scholars and their subsequent entry to postdoctoral positions. Students in the NMSU RISE Program are prepared for the next step of their career through mentored research experiences, professional development activities, formal courses, scientific workshops that develop cutting edge quantitative and technical skills, and through the guided expansion of their research social network. Three developmental activities will provide core skills to prepare students for success in different scientific fields and careers: Activity 1, Research Leadership in the 21st Century, develops the professional skills that maximize research productivity, funding success, and degree completion in 5 years; Activity 2, Preparing for the Professoriate, provides core teaching and mentorship skills essential for academic success in faculty positions; Activity 3, START-UP (Student Training and Research through United Partnerships) provides scientific and technical workshops and enhanced student off-site research training by establishing a formal network with R1 university department heads, program directors, and center leaders. RTP students are guided toward career independence through preparation of individualized development plans and electronic professional portfolios for yearly review, and through submission of fellowship and internship applications. RTP student activities are institutionalized through course offerings or through dissemination in university-wide workshops organized by the Graduate School and NMSU Teaching Academy. Students participate in formal education in Responsible Conduct in Research that is reinforced by faculty mentor practices and educational activities developed in partnership with colleagues in the START-UP network. Assessment and evaluation of program practices and outcomes are integrated into the design and continual refinement of programmatic elements.

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This collaborative project at New Mexico State University, Dona Ana Community College, and California State University, Northridge, will advance the aims of the HSI Program by establishing the NSF National Resource Hub for STEM Education at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. This HSI Resource Hub will help HSIs develop the strategies and processes to obtain the resources needed to improve the quality and outcomes of undergraduate STEM education. It will also support efforts to build institutional capacity for advancing the STEM careers of students and faculty at HSIs. The HSI Resource Hub aims to achieve these goals by building a national network of all HSIs; providing training, mentorship, and peer review to improve grant-writing practices; enabling institutions to identify and fill gaps in their capacity to obtain funding, and to develop administrative tools for conducting STEM research; providing training on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues relevant to STEM education; and disseminating resources that support evidence-based, inclusive teaching practices that increase student retention and graduation. This project has the potential to advance knowledge about how to enhance undergraduate STEM education, how to build research capacity, and how to obtain resources for these efforts, at HSIs and other institutions.

The HSI Resource Hub aspires to reach the more than 450 HSIs in the US, with special focus on including those institutions that have received little or no prior NSF support. The project aims to build HSI collaborations that can support existing STEM research, increase STEM research capacity, and encourage implementation of leading-edge pedagogy in STEM education. Regional conferences, workshops, online networking platforms, certifications, and a mini-grant program for junior faculty will support broad participation and enhance professional expertise in writing effective grant proposals. Gap analysis and collaborations will help HSIs identify and develop the infrastructure needed to manage successful STEM research and education projects. Evaluation of the HSI Resource Hub will use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies to provide data that will guide and refine the project throughout the funding period. The HSI Resource Hub activities and outcomes will be disseminated through a dedicated website, conference presentations, workshops, newsletters, publications, and social media. By uniting HSIs across the nation, the HSI Resource Hub is expected to have positive impacts on increasing the degree completion rates of students pursuing STEM degrees, thus enhancing the diversity of the US STEM workforce.

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.

This research will reveal quantitative connections between geometry and material properties of cell constituents. This work will also study the responses of cells to mechanical loads. Sensitivity to mechanical forces is a general feature of all living cells, tissues, and organs. Unhealthy cells exhibit different mechanical properties than healthy ones. For example, most cancer cells are more deformable than their noncancerous counterparts. However, the mechanisms underlying the reaction of biological systems to applied loads are not well characterized. The dominant factors controlling cell mechanical properties remain unknown. This work will produce a quantitative model that describes cell reactions to the applied forces. The approach will combine numerical, theoretical and experimental methods. The resulting model may be used for the future development of rapid diagnostic methods for various diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer?s disease. Results from this research will immediately benefit society with fundamental knowledge on the rules of life. In the long term, the knowledge and working model can be used to further the health of the nation. The project will build research capacity at New Mexico State University, a land grant Hispanic serving research institution. The research will be performed by an interdisciplinary team of investigators and trainees with expertise in computational chemistry, micromechanics, and cellular biology.

To date, cellular biomechanics research has been focused on acquisition of experimental data characterizing cellular properties, with lesser emphasis on developing theoretical frameworks that can explain the observable responses of cells to mechanical forces. The present project bridges this knowledge gap by implementing multiscale modeling to analysis of cellular biomechanics. The ultimate goal is to produce a multiscale model of an animal cell that can be used to formulate predictions, develop testable hypotheses, and uncover insights into the mechanisms by which cells react to the external forces. This goal will be achieved through completion of the following objectives: (1) determination of the mechanical properties of cell components, (2) development of a micromechanical model of the viscoelastic properties of cells, and (3) experimental validation of the developed model. To meet objectives (1) and (2), a combination of methods of molecular dynamics and micromechanics will be used. To meet objective (3), atomic force microscopy of a wide variety of animal cells from different species will be used. This project is jointly funded by the Biomechanics & Mechanobiology (BMMB) Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

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.

An award is made to New Mexico State University (NMSU) to purchase a Bio-AFM microscope comprising a NanoWizard 4 XP atomic force microscope integrated with an inverted OLYMPUS IX73 fluorescence microscope. This instrument will support the research and training of investigators and students in the state of New Mexico at three Hispanic-serving institutions that also serve Native American students from the region: New Mexico State University in Las Cruces (NMSU); New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro (NMT); Eastern New Mexico University in Portales (ENMU). The equipment will foster inclusion and build the STEM workforce through the participation of women and underrepresented minority faculty and staff from over fifteen departments and their diverse student mentees as members of the Bio-AFM User Collective. Undergraduate and graduate students will be recruited and trained through workshops and activities offered in partnership with programs whose mission is to broaden participation in STEM research such as NSF LS-AMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program, and NIH RISE and MARC. Academic courses offered through Biology, Mechanical Engineering, and Molecular Biology, will formally develop student expertise by emphasizing theory and experimental design as well as hands-on research with the Bio-AFM. In addition, a partnership with the NMSU student business accelerator program, the Arrowhead Center, will encourage student innovation in the use of Bio-AFM for biotechnology start-ups. Training of diverse students in biomechanics and interdisciplinary research will impart skills that will build competitiveness and expertise for the modern STEM workforce in basic science, biotechnology, and bioengineering fields.

The Bio-AFM is a critical tool for life science and soft materials research that permits high resolution imaging under physiological conditions for studies of the mechanical properties and responses of cells and tissues. The instrument will build research capacity at institutions in New Mexico and will increase investigator competitiveness in a broad range of disciplines such as molecular dynamics, biotechnology, cell and developmental biology, microbiology, phycology, reproductive biology, neuroscience, physiology, and bioengineering. Access to the Bio-AFM system will foster interdisciplinary research and will enable researchers and students at the three minority-serving partner institutions to conduct relevant, impactful, and cutting-edge research in microbial, plant, and animal systems. Their discoveries will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journal articles and presentations at scientific conferences.

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.