Minnesota Partnership to Foster Native American Participation in Astrophysics

明尼苏达州合作促进美洲原住民参与天体物理学

• 批准号: 2318841
• 负责人: Vuk Mandic
• 金额: $ 24.77万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2318841&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Minnesota; Partnership; Foster; Native; American

A new research and education partnership in astronomy will be developed between two University of Minnesota campuses, at Morris (UMM) and at the Twin Cities (UMTC), aimed at building a robust pathway for American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) students to enter into the field of astrophysics. The program will interweave the courses and research strengths at both UMM and UMTC campuses. A series of frontier research projects in Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (MMA) will be pursued by UMM AIAN students, mentored by both UMM and UMTC faculty. The projects will be data-intensive, leveraging the UMTC astrophysics faculty’s access to the most modern astrophysics datasets and computing resources as well as UMM faculty’s expertise in data science. Both faculty and students will have opportunities for professional development, including workshops and other activities designed to develop communication skills, leadership and teamwork skills, management skills, gender and racial awareness, ethics, and others. This partnership will have a profound positive impact on the participation of the AIAN minority in astrophysics, as well as providing a successful template that could be replicated in other programs and disciplines.The past decade has witnessed remarkable advances in astrophysics, including the discovery of gravitational waves generated in mergers of binary systems of black holes and/or neutron stars, the first observations of the black hole event horizon, and the imaging of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Students and faculty participating in the partnership will take part in research in these areas, with specific projects proposed to use MMA to refine the measurement of the expansion rate of the universe, to carry out rapid searches for astronomical merger events using the UMTC TURBO instrument, to measure correlations between gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation, and to better understand the space environment in our solar system. In education, a new Astrophysics Area of Concentration at UMM will be established at the beginning of the partnership. UMM and UMTC faculty will take part in the UMM Gateway bridge program aimed at building college skills and reducing the achievement gap for AIAN students before they begin freshmen year. The project will also leverage the UMM access to the AIAN students and communities to pursue a series of activities aimed at promoting astrophysics (and science, more broadly) to the AIAN communities. Indigenous Astronomy workshops will be organized each semester, targeting the UMM, UMTC and AIAN communities. Other activities will include Astrophysics Days at UMM each semester, which will involve public lectures by UMTC astrophysics faculty, technical workshops, portable planetarium shows, and public observing nights at the UMM telescope. This award advances the goals of the Windows on the Universe Big Idea.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.

明尼苏达大学的两个校区——莫里斯分校（UMM）和双子城分校（UMTC）——将在天文学领域建立一个新的研究和教育伙伴关系，旨在为美国印第安人和阿拉斯加原住民（AIAN）学生进入天体物理学领域建立一条健全的途径。该项目将结合umum和UMTC两个校区的课程和研究优势。在umum和UMTC教师的指导下，umum AIAN学生将进行一系列多信使天体物理学（MMA）的前沿研究项目。这些项目将是数据密集型的，利用UMTC天体物理学院对最现代的天体物理数据集和计算资源的访问，以及UMTC教授在数据科学方面的专业知识。教师和学生都将有机会进行专业发展，包括研讨会和其他旨在培养沟通技巧、领导能力和团队合作能力、管理技能、性别和种族意识、道德等的活动。这种伙伴关系将对AIAN少数民族参与天体物理学产生深远的积极影响，并提供一个可以在其他项目和学科中复制的成功模板。在过去的十年里，天体物理学取得了显著的进步，包括发现了由黑洞和/或中子星组成的双星系统合并时产生的引力波，首次观测到黑洞的事件视界，以及对银河系中心超大质量黑洞的成像。参与合作的学生和教师将参与这些领域的研究，并提出具体项目，利用MMA改进宇宙膨胀率的测量，使用UMTC TURBO仪器对天文合并事件进行快速搜索，测量引力波和电磁辐射之间的相关性，以及更好地了解我们太阳系的空间环境。在教育方面，在合作之初，将在UMM建立一个新的天体物理学集中领域。umum和UMTC的教师将参加umumgateway bridge项目，该项目旨在培养AIAN学生的大学技能，并在他们开始大一之前缩小他们的成就差距。该项目还将利用UMM对AIAN学生和社区的访问，开展一系列旨在向AIAN社区推广天体物理学（以及更广泛的科学）的活动。每学期将组织土著天文学研讨会，针对UMM， UMTC和AIAN社区。其他活动还包括每学期umc的天体物理学日，其中包括UMTC天体物理学教师的公开讲座、技术研讨会、便携式天文馆表演以及umc望远镜的公众观测之夜。这个奖项推进了“宇宙大创意之窗”的目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。