the educational outreach aspects of this program encompass a wide variety of efforts. Foremost, will build on the research activities of the center to create a new curriculum for CDS that will eventually stretch from math, science, and engineering training for K-12 educators to graduate classes in CDS at leading research institutions. The center also supports a novel science journalism program that will provide journalists with opportunities to better understand and report on scientific issues, improve and extend the communication skills of the center participants, and make bridges to the Humanities. Finally, students in the center will participate in joint activities within and between universities, including an exchange program involving Caltech, Princeton and UC Santa Barbara, along with established partner schools in Brazil, Sweden, and Portugal.
increasing the number of women and underrepresented minorities involved in CDS research and its applications is a major goal of the Center, and will be incorporated across the full spectrum of our activities, from K-12 education to graduate and postdoctoral research. Our principal objective is to improve the representation and retention of women and underrepresented minorities in graduate study and faculty positions in engineering, math, and science positions. The three CDFN partner institutions are committed to increasing the diversity of those engaged in the scientific enterprise to enhance opportunities for innovation and productivity, promote inclusion, enrich the learning environment and quality of education, and attract the full participation of all.
We will implement several concrete activities (described in more detail below) to build participation from middle school through faculty ranks. These include addressing pipeline issues via targeted outreach programs to middle schools and high schools in the areas surrounding each institution (which have large majority minority populations), and tracking all underrepresented students identified by or associated with the Center to continuously provide information, guidance, and open doors. Each institution already has ties with elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and community colleges that serve underrepresented groups in their areas. Hence, the means for attracting a pool of students, at all levels of education, exists and will be exploited by the Center.
The applications of CDS are well-suited for students interested in areas involving interdisciplinary, team-based research with significant social and technological impact, providing a strong platform for attracting students from underrepresented groups. The Center will serve as a resource for these groups, even after they are no longer students or postdocs within the Center.
leveraging over the strength of existing programs at Caltech, Princeton, and UCSB is the one strategy we will pursue. Each university has successful existing programs that we will actively coordinate with to draw students into the Center.
- Caltech's GradPreview is designed to increase the number of underrepresented students in science and engineering graduate programs and make Caltech’s programs more visible to additional students not traditionally exposed to scientific careers.
- At Princeton, the PSURE program provides opportunities for summer research to students from non-research intensive institutions (e.g., liberal arts colleges), those who have not had a summer research experience before at a major research institution, and those who can demonstrate socio-economic disadvantage. Underrepresented minority students are especially
especially encouraged to apply.
- Caltech's MURF summer undergraduate research fellow program plays a similar role, bringing outstanding students from colleges and universities around the country to engage in summertime research, mentored by Caltech faculty and graduate students. The program aims to increase the representation of underrepresented students (such as African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans) in science and engineering graduate programs. CFDN will annually sponsor 4–6 MURF students for the ten-week summer program, which serves as an important recruitment vehicle for students interested in Caltech graduate study.
creating partnerships with institutions outside the Center is the second strategy we will actively pursue. CDFN will partner with The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI), a nationally recognized organization with a mission to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, to increase the positive impact of technology on the lives of the world’s women, and to help communities, industry, education and government benefit from these increases.
- CDFN will co-sponsor with ABI the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference, a gathering of, and for, women who are creating, improving, researching, and studying computer related technologies and sciences.
- CDFN will also create a new conference event, using many of the ideas from the Hopper conference, but focused on Control and Dynamical Systems. Scheduled the day before Grace Hopper 2006, this event will be centered on CDS themes, with an speakers including leading women researchers in the area, for example several of the CDFN PIs and participants. In addition to the technical content, the day would include both panels addressing interests of the attendees, and structured networking opportunities.
- CDFN and ABI will also offer a new three-day leadership summer workshop. The agenda will be developed to complement the research, but will include panels and workshops on specific leadership skills such as mentoring, negotiation, career choices, and expanding your sphere of influence. Participants on these panels will include outside speakers from both academia and industry, and there will be time allowed for networking between workshop speakers and the students.
on-going diversity activities at each CDFN institution, Caltech, Princeton, UCSB, will be supported and strengthened by CDFN participation. These include:
Women Mentoring Women (Caltech)
Support the mentoring of women graduate students by post-doctoral scholars.
NSF Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM, Caltech)
Develop new programs to reach out to K-12 constituencies in the Los Angeles area.
Local Educators Network (Caltech)
Support interactive parterships between scientists and educators to inspire, excite and motivate a broad spectrum of learners through inquiry, exploration and experience in science and engineering research. LEN members include representatives of school districts, comprised of 85% underrepresented groups, primarily Hispanic and African American.
QUEST (Princeton)
Development of a new component for the QUEST program, a professional development program for elementary and middle school educators. QUEST is targeted at poverty level school districts, notably Trenton, NJ, and reaches substantial minority populations. The new activities will focus on the themes of the CDFN, in particular integrating and extending the Princeton Engineering Education for Kids (PEEK) program that teaches engineering to children using LEGOs. Engineering is currently taught in a local elementary school by undergraduate and graduate students from the PEEK program who work directly with the school teachers and children in the classroom on a weekly basis. PEEK grew out of a well-established LEGO engineering program at Tufts University in collaboration with Chris Rogers, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University and an NSF award winner for outreach. We will make use of the extensive curriculum developed by the Tufts Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO) and contribute a new curriculum that focuses on CDS with LEGOs. CDFN will lead QUEST programs and contribute in a major way to the PEEK program.
Annual Young Women's Conference (Princeton)
Sponsored by the Princeton
Plasma Physics Lab, this program brings several hundred middle school and high school girls together with women scientists and engineers.
Research Experience for Undergraduates (Princeton)
Princeton's Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) is oriented to underrepresented minorities and hosted by the Princeton Materials Institute. The program is principally focused on providing students with the opportunity to carry out research at the forefront of materials science and engineering, and provide a proactive educational program consisting of short courses and lectures.
Mentoring, Advocacy, Networking (UCSB)
UCSB has several programs in place which aim to increase recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minorities in the sciences and engineering at all levels (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, faculty). These include mentoring, advocacy, networking, and community building activities. While typically these activities are centered in specific departments or programs, the focus of the CDFN will be to develop ties and common activities which create connections which span science and engineering disciplines, and a network of support which is especially important in fields representation in these groups is extremely small. As part of the Center’s activities, UCSB will hold monthly informal lunch meetings with speakers who will discuss issues of interest to the group, ranging from new developments in research, to more general issues involving career paths and professional strategies, science education, science policy, science writing, and journalism, balancing professional and personal life, etc. In addition to local speakers, the group will invite several speakers each year in CDS-related areas and applications, who will visit the diversity group, interact with the CDFN Fellows, and give a departmental/Center colloquium.
