Collaborative Research: Conference: NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Expansion Program (CISE MSI) 2024-2026 Aspiring Principal Investigators Workshop

Many minority-serving institutions (MSIs) encounter challenges to establishing and maintaining a robust research enterprise, including a lack of training in proposal writing, difficulties in starting research partnerships, and limited involvement of MSI students in research endeavors. To address these obstacles, this project will organize four workshops to aimed at training aspiring principal investigators (PIs) from MSIs in the southern and southeastern US states, preparing participants for submitting proposals to the CISE MSI program in the 2025 and 2026 competitions. The events will provide a platform for participants to meet at large, share research insights, identify challenges and opportunities, and initiate potential research collaborations. Broader-impact aspects of the project comprise the broadening participation of over 60 MSI scholars as well as the fostering of MSI collaborations across nine US states. The workshops will pursue four major objectives: 1) Community building - the strengthening of relationships among data science (DS), artificial intelligence (AI), and extended reality (XR) to boost broader data-intensive research communities at MSIs; 2) Cross-learning: the facilitating of knowledge sharing, the exchanging of best practices, and the training of aspiring PIs from MSIs to leverage success and enhance proposal development skills; 3) Mentoring - the providing of each research team with experienced coaching; 4) Collaboration development - the fostering of new collaborations, the exploring of future opportunities to advance research initiatives, and the preparing of collaborative proposals towards CISE MSI-focused programs. 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.