Collaborative Research: The Increasing Diversity in Evolutionary Anthropological Sciences (IDEAS) Program

Research shows that participation of the full spectrum of diverse talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) brings unique perspectives and experiences that solve problems and promote creativity in basic and applied sciences. The Increasing Diversity in Evolutionary Anthropological Sciences (IDEAS) program is a continuing initiative to build diverse talent in biological anthropology through research, training, mentorship and collaboration opportunities for students and faculty from groups underrepresented in STEM and anthropology. As a discipline that studies the variation and evolution of living humans, non-human primates and their extinct ancestors, and features researchers who provide insights on everything from forensic identification to human ergonomics to understanding climate influences on human systems, it is critical that biological anthropology attract researchers with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The current award builds and expands on previous NSF-supported IDEAS program activities, during which over 100 students and faculty mentors participated and new researchers were retained in the discipline. The current project continues the IDEAS Program initiative through the successful student mentoring and outreach program that is held in conjunction with the American Association of Biological Anthropologists annual meeting. The project also expands the IDEAS Program initiative in two key ways: (1) adding an IDEAS Workshop at, or near, one Minority Serving Institution (MSI) annually, and (2) extending mentorship and community building into more advanced stages of the academic life cycle (i.e., post-PhD). The project also develops more sophisticated monitoring and evaluation strategies to understand this initiative’s longer-term impacts on the discipline. This project is jointly funded by the Biological Anthropology program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.