University of Arizona (UA) LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowships Cohort I

Project Summary University of Arizona (UA) LSAMP-Bridge to the Doctorate The LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) proposes to establish a cohort at the University of Arizona (UA) by recruiting underrepresented minority (URM) students from the UA and LSAMP Alliance institutions to Masters programs in engineering, optical sciences, and physical sciences. BD students will receive funding, discipline-specific faculty mentoring, and programmatic support to cultivate a self-identify as a scientist in order to prepare and encourage them to pursue Ph.D. degrees and enter the professoriate and/or the STEM workforce. Already approximately 25 incoming or firstyear masters students are eligible for this grant. The UA has been very effective in increasing the number of under-represented minorities in graduate school. Almost 1200 graduate students or 17% of our 2010-11 graduate enrolment are Hispanics, Native Americans or African Americans. This ranks the UA at the top of all other Research I, American Association of Universities (AAU) members in the US in the percentage of graduate students who are URM. The UA co-PI for this proposed program is Maria Teresa Velez, Ph.D., Psychologist, Associate Dean of the Graduate College, Director of the Graduate College Diversity Office and Training Specialist for graduate studies. Faculty volunteering to mentor BD students are accomplished Hispanic or Native American tenured or tenure-eligible professors in science and engineering, reflecting the disciplinary emphases of this grant.