U-RISE at UC Merced

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U*RISE at UC Merced - Project Abstract National statistics clearly indicate a disparity in the number of underrepresented minorities obtaining higher degrees in biomedical or biobehavioral disciplines. Given that the University of California, Merced (UC Merced) is an established Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) with the highest percentage of Hispanic undergraduates enrolled of any of the 10 UC campuses, UC Merced is ideally situated to realize the greatest benefit from an NIH U*RISE T34 training grant. Our proposed U*RISE program will support undergraduate scholars of primarily Hispanic-descent given our demographics, but we expect to use this opportunity to attract more students from other backgrounds to enhance the diversity of our campus and ultimately of our training pool. Thus, our proposal has potential for the highest impact to help transform the diversity of our undergraduate student body and ultimately the diversity of the graduate ranks as well. Data from our campus indicate a justified need to enhance and enrich the quantitative skills of our undergraduate scholars via focused research training in computational and/or systems biology. Faculty expertise and a history of extramural funding to support UC Merced’s many computational biology and Applied Math components makes a U*RISE program focusing on quantitative skills highly pertinent and sustainable at UC Merced. Thus, U*RISE at UC Merced will emphasize providing an enriching research experience for undergraduate scholars by providing unique opportunities in computational biology and/or systems biology including bioinformatics, multiple “-omics” approaches, and big data analytics. The innovation in our program lies in the cohort approach in which cohorts of trainees will work collaboratively on projects and in our novel learning modules. The strong institutional commitment from the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, the Office of Undergraduate Education, and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) will help ensure the successful training and placement of all our scholars. Levering other institutional resources such as UC Merced’s Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI) will also help succor the program’s successes. In summary, given UC Merced’s HSI status, demographics, and demonstrated need for enhanced training of its undergraduate scholars with a focus on quantitative skills makes it an ideal training institution to establish a U*RISE program with the potential for very high impact.