The month of September appears to be that of National Science Foundation (NSF) awards month made to both 2-and-4 year institutions across the nation in the famed Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) program.
Adding to our ongoing evaluation of several S-STEM grants is now the Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven, CT.
The Track 2, $1.5M 6-year project titled, “Preparing Computational Biologists for the New England Workforce (ComBiNE),” will address the need for well-trained graduates in computing and bioscience in New England. ComBiNE will recruit academically talented students with an interest in the area of computational biology and have financial needs, implement activities to support retention, and provide high-quality career readiness training.
Over its 6-year duration, ComBiNE will award 4-year scholarships to 2 cohorts of 11 and 12 scholars, respectively. Its main objective is to offer equity in talent development to students with financial need and to help fill a gap in the research and industry workforce by building interdisciplinary curricula in computational biology and helping students strengthen career readiness and pathways to meet the local and regional workforce demand. In addition to the interdisciplinary computational biology curricula, a tiered summer research experience, mentoring, and cohort building and support are also prominent features of ComBiNE.
With 45% of Southern Connecticut State University undergraduate students coming from groups underrepresented in their pursuit of STEM fields, this project holds promise to support diversity and inclusion.
Looking forward to collaborating with the extremely talented Sahar Al Seesi, Winnie Yu + their team at SCSU!
