PRISM: Attracting Students to Mathematics, Physics, and Biology Through Interdisciplinary Research and Discovery

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Intellectual Merit: The proposed activities serve the dual role to inspire passion in mathematics and the natural sciences and to create leaders. Inspiration in all proposed activities will stem from the excitement of discovering how mathematics provides both a common language and a powerful toolkit to understand a broad range of interrelated complex phenomena in today?s world that are at the forefront of research in STEM disciplines. We create this excitement by bringing students, at the earliest stages in their undergraduate years, the research expertise of the CO-PIs together with that of a collaboration of outstanding researchers in Mathematics, Physics, and Biology. By allowing the students to connect personally with these researchers and their graduate students as well as to participate actively in their research activities, first as PRISM participants and then as PRISM Fellows, we provide students the unique opportunity to move towards assuming research leadership that eventually shapes their own chosen fields and careers. Key new, integrated initiatives in the proposal include: (a) Proactive Recruitment that exploits successful STEM Advanced Placement (AP) outreach programs, (b) Summer Preview: Exploring Mathematics for first-year students, (c) Interdisciplinary Research Seminars (IDRS) for first- and second-year students during the Fall and Spring semesters, (d) A 2-Day Invitational Workshop---An Introduction to Problem Solving and Inquiry in Mathematics, Physics, and Biology for about 100 participants with teams of students from Northeastern and two-year and four-year colleges in the Boston area, (e) Summer Discovery Experience---an intensive four-week interdisciplinary program engaging students in problem solving and open-ended inquiry, and (f) a Six-Month Research Co-op/Internship with faculty or in positions offsite with organizations such as the US-USDA Center on Aging, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Microsoft, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or the Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical Center being among the possibilities. Broader Impact: Through the 2-day Workshop, PRISM activities will reach beyond Northeastern to high school students in the STEM outreach programs described in section 1 below as well as two and four year colleges in the area. Through the opportunity to participate in the Summer Discovery Experience offsite, the reach for this piece of the PRISM program has the potential to be at least national in scope as does the dissemination of PRISM results described above. Through PRISM student presentations at discipline-based meetings that invite student participation, our students will have an impact on others as they work to include early research opportunities for students on their campus. An important measure of this impact will be our success to attract African-American, Hispanic, and low-income students to mathematics and sciences through the unique seamless integration of ongoing urban high-school outreach programs and the proposed PRISM activities at Northeastern University. Overall, our PRISM program aims to demonstrate the power of a community of students at all levels and faculty to attract students to mathematics and science and provide.