URM: Mentoring of Minority Undergraduate Students through Research Focused on the Ecology of Disease in the US-Mexico borderlands

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An award has been made to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) to establish an NSF Undergraduate Research and Mentoring (URM) program in order to increase the number of underrepresented minority undergraduate students who are prepared for, and/or motivated to continue on to, graduate school and careers in ecology, environmental science and the ecology of disease. A cohort consisting of four students will be recruited each year in the first four years of the grant, and will conduct exciting research projects on the ecology of disease in the US-Mexico borderlands. NSF funds will be used to support each undergraduate participant for a total of two years. Over the 5-year period of the grant, a total of sixteen students will participate in the program. Each student will be mentored by one of at least twelve faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences who are doing research related to the ecology of disease. The UTEP URM program will provide an intensive research and mentoring program that includes hands-on research, bi-weekly workshops, exposure to career opportunities through field trips spanning local to national destinations, and travel to scientific meetings. During the workshops, students will develop their own research project that will both complement the overall mission of their mentor's research and fit within the UTEP URM theme of biodiversity, global climate change, and disease distribution and dynamics in the borderlands. A web-based information tool will be developed, and it will provide a source of information and data for future research on human health and environmental management in the study region. Additional information is available by contacting Dr. Vanessa Lougheed, at vlougheed@utep.edu, or by visiting http://ael.utep.edu/research/urm.