Purdue University has announced a partnership between the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and a consortium of minority-serving institutions working to grow the number of minority researchers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and close the gaps in the persistence rate of minority students completing these fields.
“We call this a quiet crisis,” said Luciano Castillo, Purdue’s Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems in Mechanical Engineering, the program’s principal investigator. “Minority students feel that they don’t have the tools to succeed in science and engineering careers. We want to give these students every available opportunity to overcome those barriers, to solve the big problems of tomorrow.”
The program, called Blue Integrated Partnerships, has received a $2.8 million grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Mission Capable, Persistent, and Survivable Platforms Department. The aim of the Blue Integrated Partnerships is to recruit students to participate in research projects and workshops at Purdue and other institutions, with the goal of preparing them for the next step in their academic careers.
In addition to Purdue, partners will include the University of Puerto Rico and its 11 campuses; the U.S. Naval Academy, Tuskegee University, NASA, and industry partners.
“We want this program to become a super-pipeline,” Castillo said. “K-12 students will learn what it takes to attend a STEM school like Purdue. Undergraduate students at minority-serving institutions learn how to conduct world-class research. Graduate students learn what it takes to become transformational scientists and leaders. This is how we change the story and bring true diversity to academia, which in turn will change the world.”
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