CISE Research Expansion Aspiring Investigators Conference: A Workshop on CISE Programs for Minority Serving Institutions in the Southern US Region

The proposal team would like to organize a workshop for current and potential investigators in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) disciplines who are based at Minority Serving institutions (MSIs) within the Southeastern US region. Demographic diversity in CISE fields generates more innovation and has a significant beneficial effect on the nation’s economy. MSIs have been historically less successful in competing for federal grants than non-MSI institutions leading to an under utilization of this important national resource and missed educational opportunities for minority students. The workshop will invite successful investigators to share their experiences and build new research partnerships with their aspiring younger colleagues. It is hoped that the project will improve the rates of proposal submission from the region’s MSIs resulting in more research in core CISE disciplines. The workshop is based on a successful model that matches the younger prospective investigators with more senior researchers who had been successful in competing for federal grants to form partnerships that would lead to submitting of new proposals to CISE related programs. This one and a half day meeting will be held on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) bringing together 10-15 senior mentors and twice that number of aspiring PIs from the MSIs within a 200 mile radius from the city of Huntsville, a geographical area covering four southeastern US states and 25 MSIs, most of which are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The project could facilitate Alabama research programs in aerospace, computer science, chemical engineering, photonics, and numerous other fields. Broader impacts will include curriculum development, infrastructure improvement, and new opportunities for student research. 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.