MARC at the University of Texas at San Antonio

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Summary/Abstract The United States needs a strong, diverse workforce of Ph.D.-level scientists and engineers to meet emerging challenges to the nation’s health and to cultivate faculty and leaders who represent our heterogeneous national population. It is well known that when people from different backgrounds and experiences come together, their combined perspectives and creativity lead to new approaches to challenging problems. The purpose of the proposed MARC Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio is to recruit and train a diverse group of undergraduates who are from ethnic minority groups, are financially disadvantaged, or have a disability– all groups that currently play a minimal role in our national biomedical workforce. Our goal is that MARC training will allow them to undertake the highest levels of research training, leading to the award of the Doctorate in Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree. Holding this degree opens the door to positions of great impact and responsibility in the biomedical research industry, government institutions, and our nation’s universities. The MARC trainees will be majors in Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, and Mathematics. To prepare future trainees, MARC will develop a ‘pre-MARC” population of excellent applicants and educate them about the Ph.D. careers in research, fundamental professional skills, help them connect with faculty, and guide them towards research experiences and the MARC program. MARC will provide financial support to trainees who enter as sophomores or juniors and complete the program as seniors, acquiring between two and three years of experience. MARC will offer a wide array of training workshops and experiences for the trainees and for additional “MARC-2” students who desire a Ph.D. but are not in one of the 24 MARC training positions. MARC training for students and their faculty research mentors will ensure that the trainees have a safe and welcoming laboratory experience; grow a network of peers, faculty, and former MARC trainees; develop the many research and professional skills needed to be strong applicants for PhD programs; learn modern computational techniques for working with data; and grow as leaders. Training workshops will guide the trainees through important events in their development, among them writing an abstract (summary) of their research so that they can present it at a scientific conference, making presentations in increasingly professional settings, completing their first application to another school to obtain a summer research position, and finally, successfully applying to, and interviewing for, Ph.D. programs. The MARC faculty, staff, mentors, and instructors have supported hundreds of underrepresented students in programs for over 20 years; scores of these students have been admitted to some of the most prestigious Ph.D. programs in the world. For this proposed five-year program, our main goals are for all trainees to graduate with their bachelor’s degree, with at least 80% of trainees continuing on the doctoral path, and 85% of these completing their programs and advancing to high-level careers in the biomedical sciences that will benefit all Americans.