Tammi Vacha-Haase - US grants

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a highly competitive, federal fellowship program. GRFP helps ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering. This award supports the NSF Graduate Fellows pursuing graduate education at this GRFP institution.

The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program assists universities and colleges in diversifying the STEM workforce through the development of highly competitive students from groups historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines: African-Americans, Alaska Natives, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. The goal of the LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) Activity is to increase the quantity and quality of STEM graduate students from underrepresented populations, with emphasis on PhD matriculation and completion. BD programs implemented in the nation's institutions of higher education contribute to addressing one of the objectives in NSF's 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, namely to "foster the growth of a more capable and diverse research workforce and advance the scientific and innovation skills of the Nation." The vision of this grant is to provide a national model to produce underrepresented scientists and engineers with doctoral degrees in STEM.

The performance site for this LSAMP BD Activity is Boise State University (BSU), one of the 10 college and universities included in the Pacific Northwest Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (PNW LSAMP). The immediate goal of the PNW Graduate Fellows Program at BSU is to recruit and retain a cohort of twelve LSAMP students through to graduation with a STEM doctoral degree. To ensure the success of underrepresented minority (URM) students at the graduate level, the project will provide a comprehensive framework for academic achievement by emphasizing multidisciplinary learning, building a sense of community and social networking events, incorporating inclusive mentoring strategies that enhance diversity and inclusion, encouraging scientific writing skills development to increase science identity, and integrating career exploration and professional development. Ultimately, the program will be the catalyst to fundamentally transform the structures, mindsets, processes, and programming at BSU so that the institution increases the overall representation and success of historically URM students in their completion of STEM doctoral degree programs. Moreover, the lessons learned from this program will be shared extensively with the other universities in the PNW LSAMP Alliance, across the LSAMP national network, and more generally with the national STEM higher education arena.

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.