STIMULUS - Science & Technology Immersion for Underrepresentd Learners in the U.S.

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Project Summary: Black, Latino, and Native American students fall far behind their White and Asian counterparts in representation within science employment and academic programs. This disparity is especially noticeable within the ethnically-diverse California Bay Area that is rich in biomedical and engineering opportunities. Similar to other parts of the country, students of color are consistently underrepresented. For example, in 2013, 11% of the U.S. workforce was Black but only 6% of those employed in science jobs were Black. In comparison, White and Asians are 3-times more likely to be employed in science jobs compared to the domestic workforce. Despite decades of legislation and policy changes, these statistics have changed minimally over 30 years. Since its founding, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) has set addressing these disparities in our community as a mission objective. To that end, CHORI created a Summer Student Research Program (SSRP) nearly four decades ago to promote diversity in biomedical training by providing a short-term, one-on-one mentored research experience to underrepresented students with potential to significantly contribute to a culturally-representative scientific research workforce. For 38 years, we have secured uninterrupted funding to develop this program while continuing to expand and improve by adding training and experiences that will appeal to the modern student. The next innovation we call STIMULUS – Science & Technology IMmersion for Underrepresented Learners in the US – seeks to utilize the R25 mechanism to support 18 undergraduate or health professional students each year for the next five years. With STIMULUS, the existing program infrastructure will be upgraded to strengthen our curriculum to better match the diversity of the students and evolving needs of the scientific marketplace. This multi-faceted proposal provides many enhancements, including a new collaboration with the University of California Berkeley, School of Bioengineering, more comprehensive training workshops, expanded recruiting from regional pipeline programs and historically black colleges, formalized program for near-peer mentoring, enhanced alumni tracking and evaluation, and an innovative case-based approach for bioethics education. We expect these program enhancements will allow us to reach more under-represented students and have a longer-lasting impact on the selected students to pursue a career in biomedical or clinical research by stimulating their interest, arming them with practical professional development skills, and increasing their confidence in science, thereby improving their likelihood of success in the Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) workforce.