U-RISE at City College of New York

The goal of the proposed U-RISE program is to further increase the number of qualified undergraduates from underrepresented groups who continue their education at the Ph.D. level in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. The project will consist of activities that represent a coordinated program that includes undergraduate recruitment, extensive research experience, and graduate school preparation. These activities are centered around research training and mentoring, coupled with specific courses for the U-RISE trainees to prepare them for the rigors of postgraduate training. The intended trainee outcomes are that all trainees earn their BS degree, receive extensive research training in a host laboratory so that they better understand how to frame and address scientific questions, present their work at local and national conferences, co-author a publication, increase their self-perception and confidence as scientists, and apply and be admitted to graduate programs. We will recruit students for placement into the laboratories of faculty in the departments of Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Earth & Atmospheric Science, Physics, and Psychology; the pool of mentors also includes faculty from the CUNY School of Biomedical Education and the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. Students will be appointed for their final 2-3 years of undergraduate study. They will engage in mentored independent research; have regular advising and scientific meetings with their student peers, mentor, and the U-RISE program director and advisory committee; and will participate in professional development seminars. We will also partner with other CCNY training programs to provide mentoring development workshops for our faculty mentors. We will leverage our partnerships with community colleges in the City University of New York system to identify potential trainees, and with institutions in New York City such as the New York Structural Biology Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, or Columbia University Medical Center to offer expanded training opportunities for our students. The implementation of the new U-RISE program will benefit top science students, both trainees as well as non-trainees, thereby meeting the goals of strengthening the capability of the college to train students in the sciences, and enhancing their research training experience at City College.