The Graduate Opportunities at Fisk in Astronomy and Astrophysics Research (GO-FAAR) program builds on a successful partnership between Fisk University and Vanderbilt University, the centerpiece of which is the Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-to-PhD Bridge program. The Bridge program is a graduate program in physics and astronomy that has, to date, attracted 29 underrepresented minority students, with a retention rate of 97%, positioning the program to become a leading producer of minority PhDs in astronomy and astrophysics in the United States. GO-FAAR will enable a stable foundation of support for the purposes of scaling up the Bridge program, institutionalizing a strong infrastructure for astronomy and astrophysics research at Fisk, solidifying research collaborations, and launching a parallel program for Fisk undergraduates. Faculty and students in the GO-FAAR Partnership will execute a broad, multi-faceted, multi-institution research plan, involving collaborative projects in astronomical instrumentation, computational astrophysics, and observational astronomy. The GO-FAAR Partnership includes Vanderbilt University, Boston University (BU), the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the National Solar Observatory (NSO), the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), the University of Hawaii at Hilo (UHH), and the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Overall, the program has a goal increasing by 75% the annual number of underrepresented minorities earning the PhD in astronomy and astrophysics in the United States, and sustaining this level in steady state. In addition GO-FAAR will support and mentor a cadre of undergraduates at Fisk who will (a) complete a sequence of courses leading to a new Minor in Astrophysics at Fisk University, and (b) participate in astronomy and astrophysics research through the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs at Fisk, Vanderbilt, BU, NOAO, and NSO. Finally, the successful Fisk-Vanderbilt Astronomy Roadshow outreach program will be adapted and expanded to bring the excitement of astronomy to underrepresented minority students in the Nashville public schools and to act as a program of leadership development for GO-FAAR participants.
The Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-PhD Bridge Program, created in 2004, has as its primary mission the increase of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM academe and workforce. To date we have enrolled 78 students, 83% of them are underrepresented minorities, 52% male and 48% female. Twelve students have completed the PhD phase, all with offers of employment in the STEM workforce prior to graduation. The program is on pace to produce 3-5 URM PhDs per year moving forward, making it a national leader in URM PhD production in astronomy, physics, and materials science. This project focused on specifically developing research and providing underrepresented minority student support in the areas of astronomical instrumentation, theoretical astronomy and observational astronomy. The results have been the development of and funding of new proposals investigating materials that can be used in astronomy applications including instrumentation. Further, our efforts in astronomy have been highly successful and include the first publication of a first-author paper by an African-American woman in the internationally renowned journal Nature. Also, we have supported the first African-American woman to graduate with a PhD in astronomy from Yale. Numerous students have been involved in the publication of dozens of high impact manuscripts and presented their work nationally and internationally. The academic and professional outcomes of the project have been presented and symposia and conferences, and as a result increased the national profile of the program and the need for increased diversity in STEM fields. The Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program's tools and methods have been published in the American Journal of Physics, Nature, and other scholarly venues, and how have been disseminated in the form of an online Bridge Program Toolkit available to the broader community from the program's website.
