LSAMP BD: Stony Brook University SUNY LSAMP Alliance

Building participation in science and engineering in the U.S. is critical to the position of the U.S. in the global science and engineering enterprise. Failure to recruit and retain individuals into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education will likely result in a declining STEM workforce which is already insufficient to meet the workforce needs to resolve global STEM challenges. The LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) program provides a powerful mechanism for universities across the United States to recruit cohorts of exceptional LSAMP undergraduate students into STEM graduate programs with support equal to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The LSAMP-BD program at Stony Brook University will recruit students from a national pool of LSAMP graduates to engage in evidence-based, innovative training that incorporates skill-based educational objectives and psychosocial and professional development support leading to STEM Master's and Doctoral degree completion. Thus, contributing to the NSF's mission to promote the progress of science. The goals of LSAMP-BD at Stony Brook are to 1) Recruit 12 LSAMP BD Fellows who demonstrate the potential to complete graduate study and ultimately obtain a graduate degree; 2) Design and implement an LSAMP-BD program that helps BD Fellows complete the first two years of STEM graduate study; 3) Ensure that LSAMP-BD Fellows graduate and move into academia or the STEM workplace; 4) Work with STEM departments to provide academic and programmatic support where needed to help fellows through doctoral study; and 5) Promote systemic change in graduate STEM policy and practices to increase the success of individual students on the doctoral pathway and the effectiveness of STEM graduate education. Social Science research investigating the role of individual-, social-relational-, and institutional- level factors that are hypothesized to interact and predict graduate student outcomes will contribute to the body of research related to STEM graduate education. LSAMP-BD at Stony Brook will develop and refine strategies to increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation of STEM graduate students which will be disseminated to a broad national audience. Increasing the number of LSAMP undergraduate students who obtain STEM doctoral and master’s degrees will contribute to the national STEM talent 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.