Postdoctoral Fellowship: MPS-Ascend: Searching for a CURE: How to Engage All Students in Research

Rachel Merritt被授予NSF数学和物理科学博士后研究奖学金，以开展与扩大STEM中代表性不足的群体参与有关的研究和活动计划。 梅里特博士的奖学金支持她的研究项目，题为“博士后奖学金：MPS-Ascend：寻找治愈：如何让所有学生参与研究”的赞助科学家的指导下。该奖学金的主办机构是科罗拉多大学博尔德分校，赞助科学家是石楠Lewandowski博士。Merritt博士将从事一项研究项目，以确定物理学特定的挑战和机会，创造和维持基于课程的本科生。研究经验，或CURES。她将使用基于设计的研究方法来创建一个CURE课程，作为研究“实验室”，用于调查物理CURE的哪些组成部分导致特定的结果。这些知识将导致有效实践框架的发展，以创建和维持物理学中的CURE。梅里特将包括少数民族服务机构在治愈项目，以确保学生从历史上服务不足，目前代表性不足的群体的参与。该项目产生的框架以及开发的新物理CURE将促进全国物理CURE的创建和可持续性。这些CURE将通过提供真实的研究机会来增强物理学生的能力，并为他们在STEM领域的下一个职业生涯做好更好的准备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Rachel Merritt is awarded an NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to conduct a program of research and activities related to broaden participation by groups underrepresented in STEM. This fellowship to Dr. Merritt supports her research project entitled “Postdoctoral Fellowship: MPS-Ascend: Searching for a CURE: How to Engage All Students in Research” under the mentorship of a sponsoring scientist. The host institution for the fellowship is the University of Colorado Boulder and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Heather Lewandowski.Dr. Merritt will pursue a research project to work on the identification of physics-specific challenges and opportunities in creating and sustaining course-based undergraduate.research experiences, or CUREs. She will use a design-based research approach to create a CURE course to use as the research ‘laboratory’ for investigating which components of a physics CURE lead to specific outcomes. This knowledge will result in the development of a framework of effective practices to create and sustain CUREs in physics. Dr. Merritt will include Minority Serving Institutions in the CURE project to ensure the participation of students from historically underserved and currently underrepresented groups. The framework resulting from this project, and the new physics CURE developed, will foster the creation and sustainability of physics CUREs across the Nation. These CUREs will empower physics students by providing access to authentic research opportunities and better preparing them for their next career step in STEM.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.