The Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) provides support to undertake an institutional self-analysis and to design activities in preparation for a research center. The project at Coppin State University seeks to establish the Integrative Center for Emerging Contaminants (ICEC). The goal of the planning grant is to build the foundation for a center, envisioned to be funded by the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program, to perform cutting-edge research in emerging contaminants (EC), which are derived from industry, agriculture, and biotechnological and pharmaceutical sectors. Undergraduate students are actively involved in this project by participating in research. This project supports the goal of the CREST program to provide support to enhance the research capabilities of minority-serving institutions through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research.
Through this planning grant, the project will form at least three convergent research collaborations to strategically strengthen research capacity and articulate shared areas of excellence. The three interrelated subprojects are: identifying, characterizing and quantifying ECs; studying impacts of ECs on biological systems; and remediation of ECs. Specific planning activities include: conducting a writing workshop, conceptualizing and planning for development of a center, piloting research projects to assess student learning during undergraduate research experiences, and faculty development. The project will be guided by formative and summative evaluation. This project is jointly funded by the HBCU-UP and CREST 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.
