$3M Department of Defense Award to Support UIC STEM Research Program
A multidisciplinary research team from the University of Illinois Chicago has been awarded a $3 million, three-year U.S. Department of Defense award to establish an undergraduate research mentoring program in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, areas with a focus on engaging undergraduate student veterans and minority students. UIC’s proposal was one of only 12 selected for funding.
UIC’s initiative aims to prepare and engage students for potential technical careers in national defense. In addition, UIC researchers will evaluate the program’s effect on students’ GPAs, time to graduation, and choice of STEM careers or post-graduate school. “If successful, our program could become a blueprint for STEM undergraduate training at other diverse, public Research I universities,” said the project’s principal investigator Russell Hemley, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Chair in the Natural Sciences and professor of physics and chemistry at UIC.
Mentors in the program include UIC faculty members and researchers Elizabeth Kocs, Fatemeh Khalili, Michael Stroscio, Jordi Cabana, Ksenija Glusac, George Papadantonakis, Donald Wink, Avia Rosenhouse-Dantsker, Lev Reyzin and Rigel Gjomemo.