BLOG: UK, Fayette County Schools' STEM Pipeline Program
As summer camp season wraps up and a new school year begins, this “Research Made Possible” podcast shares how University of Kentucky researchers across campus are targeting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.
The STEM Through Authentic Research and Training (START) program at UK is partnering with Fayette County Public Schools to create a unique pipeline to increase STEM literacy and promote STEM careers for traditionally underrepresented populations (people of color, individuals with disabilities, students from free or reduced lunch schools), first-generation college students and girls and women in STEM.
The START program is funded by a five-year, $1.3 million Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Luke Bradley, a university Chellgren Endowed Professor, Lewis Honors faculty and associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience, is the principal investigator on the SEPA grant and START director. He says that because these demographics are underrepresented in the STEM professions, START will target underrepresented groups by offering real-world research experiences beginning in elementary school and continuing through graduate school.
The podcast features the START team: Luke Bradley, Margaret Mohr-Schroeder (professor of STEM education and associate dean in the College of Education), Fara Williams (director of the Kentucky-West Virginia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program), Julie Bradley (assistant director of academic coaching in the Department of Transformative Learning) and Anthony Sinai (professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics in the UK College of Medicine).
Research reported in this podcast was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25GM132961. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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