The UC Berkeley MARC: Shaping the Next Generation of Scientific Leaders

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Project Summary/Abstract The University of California, Berkeley (UCB) is a world-class research institution with a large number of biomedical science undergraduates who are underrepresented minority, are first-generation college students, come from low-socio-economic backgrounds or are disabled. The overarching goal of the UCB MARC program is to prepare highly motivated students from these underrepresented (UR) groups to apply and succeed in Ph.D. programs, helping to address the nation's need for a diverse scientific workforce. The program will address barriers that deter UR students from pursuing research careers using three strategies. First, the program will place students in labs run by PIs known for their scientific rigor and undergraduate mentoring skills. Second, the program will provide a series of scientific and professional development workshops, journal clubs and research seminars that will enhance the trainees' written and oral communication skills, their ability to ask important scientific questions and to design rigorous experiments to address these questions, and to critically evaluate the scientific findings. Third, the program will build a cohort of students and mentors who will support each other and help the trainees achieve their career goals. Together, these strategies will enhance the self-efficacy and science identity of the trainees and produce a group of gritty and rigorous young scientists with promising futures. The program will engage evaluation and assessment tools to ensure that these strategies are successful in achieving the its goals and to provide the flexibility to improve the program as it evolves. The program will support UR junior and senior students with an intention to pursue a Ph.D. in the biomedical sciences. Over the course of this five-year grant, we propose to support 78 MARC Scholars. Our goal is to have >75% of MARC Scholars to matriculate into Ph.D. programs within two years of graduation from UCB. The proposed MARC Program will also serve as a model for programs seeking to increase diversity and support the success of undergraduate students from UR groups in research careers and share best practices with programs that have overlapping goals.