The objective of this program is to provide a combination of financial support, academic enrichment, mentoring, professional development resources, and leadership preparation to twenty-six talented students with financial need so that they can navigate successfully through their undergraduate years in science or mathematics at the institution. To support student achievement at the highest academic level, scholarship recipients are embedded in a mentoring network of peers, near peers, faculty, professional scientists and alumni who are further advanced on the academic pathway. The financial support relieves talented students with financial need of the obligation to work and take out loans while they make their way through a first class education in the mathematical or physical sciences to graduate school or the scientific workforce.
Intellectual Merit:
This project opens the door for academically talented students from diverse backgrounds with demonstrated financial need to key fields of modern science. By focusing on potential for leadership and success, the program encourages the scholarship recipients to envision, plan for, and prepare for graduate school or productive and competitive careers in the scientific workforce. Priority is being given to supporting the preparation and advancement of students with interest, academic merit, and indicators of determination to succeed in the fields of Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geophysics, Earth and Planetary Science, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics. During the freshman and sophomore years, scholars become members of and benefit directly from the formal networked community of scientists. Leadership and talent development opportunities are being introduced during the junior and senior years.
Broader Impacts:
The project prioritizes the recruitment and retention of diversity students, using the legal California post-Proposition 209 definition to include historically underrepresented minorities, women, students with disabilities, and students who are the first generation in their families to go to college. To achieve this, the project works closely with the Office of Admissions and the Financial Aid Office to identify eligible students who also increase diversity in the mathematical and physical sciences. The project team then engages in active partnership with programs that focus on the recruitment and advancement of students from groups underrepresented in science and are administered by the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Diversity and Education Center. These include the Berkeley Science Network and the NSF-Berkeley Science Connections, both of which are designed to facilitate the advancement of underrepresented minorities in the mathematical, physical and computer sciences from high school through post-doctoral levels; The Compass Project, which fosters an inclusive community in the physical sciences at the undergraduate level; and the Society for Women in the Physical Sciences, a university supported program run by female graduate students in Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Sciences and Biophysics, whose goals are to encourage women and minorities to study the physical sciences and to create a friendly and supportive environment in these departments for all students.
