ESTEEMED LEArning and Discovery through Engineering Research at Syracuse (LEADERS)

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To maintain its position as a global leader in healthcare and medicine, the US needs to strengthen its workforce by including greater numbers of scientists from diverse backgrounds in bioengineering and biomedicine research careers. However, this goal is not attainable without first increasing the diversity of students in undergraduate engineering programs, which is an acute challenge nationally. Racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are significantly underrepresented in biomedical engineering research. A variety of academic and non-academic factors contribute to these students’ decisions to join an undergraduate engineering or bioengineering program. To eliminate these limiting factors, there is an urgent need to create a diverse and inclusive ecosystem where underrepresented biomedical engineering students feel like they belong, are expected to succeed, and are supported and mentored by an interconnected network of faculty, staff, and peers. To achieve this goal, the ESTEEMED LEArning and Discovery through Engineering Research at Syracuse (LEADERS) program has been developed to recruit, retain, and mentor four cohorts of eight underrepresented students in biomedical engineering at Syracuse University who go on to join doctoral programs and subsequently lead independent research careers in bioengineering, biomedicine, and behavioral research. The ESTEEMED LEADERS program will shift the current paradigm of the limited number of students from diverse backgrounds in bioengineering at Syracuse to a new ecosystem of inclusive research excellence that promotes attaining a doctorate through a deliberate, focused, and well-resourced approach to attracting and advancing these talented young people. We will introduce the concepts and skills needed to achieve these aims via rich programmatic support and activities during the six-week summer bridge program. These concepts and skills will be reinforced in the first academic year, and the students will master them by the end of the second academic year. These goals will be accomplished through four programmatic pillars—Aim 1: Boost students’ confidence in their academic abilities. Aim 2: Engage students in immersive research experiences in bioengineering and biomedicine research. Aim 3: Provide focused mentoring and skill development. Aim 4: Enhance students’ perspectives on the impact of bioengineering careers on society. These collective experiences and authentic research training over the two years will enable students to transition into the Renée Crown Honors Program. In Honors, students will receive more support to enable their development of an Honors theses and their pursuit of graduate school. Thus, the program's overarching mission is to increase the numbers of underrepresented bioengineering students who pursue the PhD or the MD/PhD, and so contribute to the nation's need for a more diverse research workforce.