Sophomore Fellows: Cultivating New Scientists through Research, Mentoring, and Community

在美国国家科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金(S-STEM)项目的资助下，二年级研究员项目将支持德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生。在五年的资助期间，该项目将为攻读天文学、生物学、生物化学、化学、计算机科学和物理学学士学位的大二学生提供125个年度奖学金，最高可达5000美元。二年级研究员项目将使这些学者参与位于本科生、研究生和教师导师社区中的研究项目。二年级研究员项目的目标是提高低收入学生的毅力和毕业率，包括那些在STEM中代表性不足的学生，同时更好地为学生进入研究生院和科学职业生涯做好准备。这个项目将调查经济援助与课程内研究、教师指导和同伴指导活动相结合的有效性，以提高学生的学业成长和坚持不懈。二年级研究员利用德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校自然科学学院的新生研究倡议(FRI)。FRI是一个以社区为基础的课程整合计划，让本科生参与研究。二年级研究员项目将使用现有的FRI课程结构，这一结构已被证明可以提高STEM的毕业率，并将增加财政激励，鼓励学生在一年级和二年级之间最常见的消耗点坚持下去。二年级的学生将在周五的研究流程中选修课程。一个由教师、研究生和其他本科生组成的研究小组将形成这次研究经验的结构。预计这一经历将帮助学生发展包括团队合作、研究、写作和口头交流在内的技能。在第二学期，二年级研究员将作为新来的FRI学生的同伴导师，扩大这些奖学金的影响，每个奖项颁发给数十名学生。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With funding from the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, the Sophomore Fellows project will support high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of Texas at Austin. Throughout its five years of funding, this project will fund 125 annual scholarships of up to $5,000 for sophomore students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Astronomy, Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Sciences, and Physics. The Sophomore Fellows project will engage these Scholars in research projects that are situated in a community of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty mentors. The goal of the Sophomore Fellows project is to increase persistence and graduation rates of low-income students, including those from groups that are underrepresented in STEM, while better preparing students for graduate school and scientific careers. This project will investigate the efficacy of coupling financial aid with intra-curricular research, faculty mentorship, and peer mentoring activities to improve student academic growth and persistence. Sophomore Fellows leverages the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) in the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin. FRI is a community-based curriculum-integrated program that engages undergraduate students in research. The Sophomore Fellows project will use the existing FRI program structure, which has been demonstrated to increase graduation rates in STEM, and will add a financial incentive to encourage students to persist at the most common attrition point between their first and second years. Sophomore Fellows will take courses in an FRI research stream. A research group that includes faculty, graduate students, and other undergraduates, will form the structure for this research experience. It is expected that this experience will help students develop skills including teamwork, research, writing, and oral communication. In their second semester, Sophomore Fellows will serve as peer mentors for incoming FRI students, amplifying the impact of these scholarships to dozens of students for every award given.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.