San Antonio, Texas, which is officially named "Military City USA", has more than 250,000 veterans and 80,000 active-duty military personnel supporting one of the largest concentrations of military bases in the United States. Four central military bases collectively contribute $50B to the local economy and the rapidly growing University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA) campuses are attended by one of the most ethnically diverse student populations in the nation. To support at-risk students in the San Antonio community, the USTA's Biomedical engineering Research for Active military and Veterans (BRAVe) REU Site program will promote retention of students during critical transitional points in their engineering education by providing structured biomedical research experiences, mentoring, and support groups with a focus on issues that directly impact military and Veterans health. This initiative will support the following objectives to: (1) provide engaging, challenging engineering research projects for students supervised by faculty in the joint UTSA- UT-Health San Antonio Biomedical Engineering program; (2) develop mentoring programs for student researchers, where faculty and peer mentors reflect the diversity of the student population; (3) introduce students to the San Antonio military and medical research communities and new career opportunities; (4) expose students to the impact of biomedical engineering research on military and Veterans communities; and (5) integrate ethics training throughout all aspects the student research experience and professional development.
The 10-week summer BRAVe REU program will support the careers of at-risk undergraduate students who have yet to decide an academic path by developing multi-tiered student mentoring programs, promoting engagement with the San Antonio military communities, and supporting research projects focused on issues critical to the local community. Students will have a choice of interning in twelve UTSA laboratories, which offer research projects that apply biomedical engineering principles to solve problems related to military and Veterans health. The research projects typically address one of the following objectives: (A) identifying engineering solutions to enable regeneration, repair and control of damaged tissue (e.g., transplantation of brain cells, wireless neuromodulation); (B) non-invasively monitoring molecular, cellular and tissue recovery (e.g., modeling neurovascular repair, photoacoustic imaging of cell interactions); and/or (C) treating soldiers in the battlefield.
BRAVe's projects will benefit many applications, including improved treatment for the ~20,000 U.S. service members diagnosed yearly with traumatic brain injury (Source: DoD). BRAVe's student experiences benefit from working on research challenges that have significant societal implications and are tailored to engage population of underrepresented students for whom the research has particular relevancy. The REU mentors actively collaborate with Army, Navy, Air Force and VA facilities as part of the joint UTSA-UTHSA joint Biomedical Engineering graduate program; while the REU mentees reflect the growing diversity of the local undergraduate population. Collaborating partners (South Texas Veterans Health Care System, Veterans and Military Affairs, Trinity College, University of the Incarnate Word) additionally help support BRAVe through a number of coordinated activities.
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.
