Yinghui Liu - US grants

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). <br/><br/>This Research Infrastructure Improvement Bridging EPSCoR Communities (RII BEC) project, centered at the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa (UA), aims to serve the national interest by creating a model for building sustainable partnerships between Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Such partnerships will help broaden the participation of students historically underrepresented in graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). UA will partner with three HBCUs, including Stillman College (SC) in Alabama, Jackson State University (JSU) in Mississippi, and Fort Valley State University (FVSU) in the non-EPSCoR state of Georgia. This project will help grow chemistry, physics, and engineering majors within HBCUs by providing an interdisciplinary perspective of energy education and research. In concert with this, the partnerships will create a blend of uniform and individualized pathways for undergraduate HBCU students that lead to graduate studies, careers, and entrepreneurial opportunities in renewable energy. This will be accomplished by engaging student participants in diverse educational experiences. Project components will include a summer boot camp at UA to help fill gaps in students' learning caused by the pandemic. In addition, the project will implement a summer research and development (R & D) program to recruit and prepare HBCU participants to transition to graduate programs. The R & D program will include weekly research seminars, entrepreneurial workshops, joint academic advising via UA and the HBCUs, undergraduate research experiences that address global challenges, summer research conferences, hands-on laboratory experiences, and professional training in ethics and laboratory safety. <br/><br/>Goals of the project are several fold and include: (1) enhancing the competitiveness of HBCU student participants as applicants to graduate programs; (2) preparing students for the STEM workforce; and (3) providing students with content knowledge, skills, experiences, and confidence to engage in entrepreneurial pursuits in the STEM arena. The project will engage HBCU students in STEM research that will help create devices comprised of advanced materials and structures for energy conversion and storage application. In particular, students will develop molecular and solid catalytic and solid thin film materials and their heterojunctions for efficient energy harvesting, conversion, and storage. Students will receive mentoring and state-of-the-art training in the fields of chemistry, physics, engineering, and materials chemistry to address challenging issues of energy research and technology relevant to solar cells, batteries, and light-emitting diodes and technologies for CO2 reduction. A rigorous assessment process will be implemented to evaluate the project’s progress and provide feedback to the investigators toward achieving both short and long-term goals. Education and research activities and results will be disseminated on a designated website as well as through journal publications, conferences, and various social media platforms. Research, education, and professional development activities of this project will collectively enhance students’ learning experiences by fusing focused and realigned pedagogical content and lab skills into real-world experiences. These activities will provide transitory knowledge for students to begin connecting the importance of research concepts for future academic and industrial careers. This project will help economic development and the renewable energy industry by producing talented next-generation scientists and engineers through a strategic undergraduate and graduate partnership program between a non-HBCU university and three HBCUs.<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.