Upgrades and Acquisitions for the Collaborative Cal-State Fullerton Paleoclimate, Coastal Processes, and Archaeology Lithics Research Laboratories

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Central to the National Science Foundation’s core values is the strengthening and diversifying of scientific leadership. To fulfil this core value, funding to recruit, retain, and develop the next generation of scientists, particularly those students from historically underrepresented groups, is critical. A key to recruiting, retaining, and developing these students is through conscientious mentoring and the offering of real-life (high impact) research and technological opportunities. Integral to providing these research opportunities is the availability of technology that is both student-friendly, reliable (i.e., minimal required maintenance), and cost efficient per analysis. This equipment acquisition will bolster the PIs’ student-oriented research laboratories through technological upgrades and acquisitions to the collaborative California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) Paleoclimatology, CSUF Coastal Processes, and CSUF Archaeology Lithic Laboratories. Equipment acquisitions and upgrades will provide new and continuing technological opportunities for our students both for research and classroom activities. Of note, CSUF is a Hispanic Serving Institute where 46% of the student population is from historically underrepresented groups and 29.9% are the first generation in their family to attend a university. As a result, our university and its professors interact with students from historically underrepresented groups in the STEM and social science fields daily. Notably, all 3 PIs have excellent track records recruiting students from historically underrepresented groups for research opportunities and including technology in the classroom. Exposure to technology benefits society by training the next generation of scientists, developing analytical skills required for the ever-changing workplace, instilling student confidence in their abilities, and providing important problem-solving skills that are required (and expected) in the workforce.This award will fund three technological acquisitions: 1) a Malvern Mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction system with the Hydro LV large volume automated liquid sample dispersion unit, 2) a Mirion Small Anode Germanium (SAGe) Well Gamma Detector, and 3) acquire a Bruker Tracer 5g graphene window portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyzer. In addition to providing new and continuing technological opportunities for our students both for research and classroom activities, these equipment acquisitions will allow the PIs to continue their exploration of creative, original, and potentially transformative concepts in their fields and across their fields via state-of-the-art data collection with student participation as an integral component. Research in the geosciences focuses on California’s past climate including droughts, floods, pluvials, fire, and vegetation as well as assessing/identifying the drivers of these changes. Additional research focuses on sedimentation, sediment processes, and human impacts within a variety of coastal environments and over a range of time scales from event-scale to millennia. Finally, archaeological research focuses on the way Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Mojave Desert and Great Plains organized land use and lithic technology. Importantly, all 3 PIs collaborate on various research projects and share lab equipment, thus advancing knowledge and understanding within and across fields of study. This award is being co-funded by the Marine Geology and Geophysics program.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.