Broadening Participation in the Mathematical and Physical

Sciences (MPS)

W. Lance HaworthExecutive Officer

Division of Materials Researchlhaworth@nsf.gov

AGEP Workshop, San Juan, PR – 27 January 2006

Directorate forMathematical and Physical

Sciences

Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Division ofChemistry

Division ofChemistry

Division ofMaterialsResearch

Division ofMaterialsResearch

Division ofMathematical

Sciences

Division ofMathematical

Sciences

Division ofPhysics

Division ofPhysics

Division ofAstronomical

Sciences

Office of Multidisciplinary ActivitiesOffice of Multidisciplinary Activities

Broadening Participation

The Face of American Science

A Huge Challenge for MPS Science

Is Not the Face of America

SOURCE: National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators-2004

U.S. population of 20–24-year-olds, by race/ethnicity: Selected years, 1985–2020

Broadening Participation in MPS Science

Strategy• Robust MPS presence in NSF-wide activities

• Research based and embedded throughout MPS

• Build capacity through partnerships

LA-STEM PREM HamptonLIGO

• Every MPS program director can have an impact!

Merit Review Criteria

• What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?– how good is this stuff?

• What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?– so what?

NSF invests in the best ideas from the most capable people, determined by competitive

merit review

Reviewer Selection!!!

Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA)

• Catalyze & Support Emerging, Cross-Cutting Areas• Champion Broadened Participation in MPS• Enable and Facilitate through

– Partnerships– Innovative models for education– Broadly enabling infrastructure– New research modalities– Integration of research and education

** OMA does not accept or review proposals **

Broadening Participationin the Mathematical and Physical Sciences

A FEW EXAMPLES

Activities range from pre-college students and teachers to university faculty

Research Experiences for Teachers Research Experience for Undergraduates

Discovery-based learning experiences

Partner with Cornell University projects in nuclear and high energy physics

Wayne State Physics

•More than 300 MPS REU (or similar) sites•>50% female, ~20% minorities•REU and RET coupled for synergy•30 RET sites, 225 teachers•Program has reached >600,000 K12 students

Faculty RecruitingACS Academic Employment Initiative

Symposia on the academic hiring processPoster session for prospective faculty members

ObjectivesMore inclusive hiringMore efficient hiring

Building Strong Academic Chemistry Departments through Gender Equity

K. Houk, UCLA and C. Friend, Harvard

http://www.chem.harvard.edu/groups/friend/ GenderEquityWorkshop/index.html

January 29-31, 2006 Arlington, VA

Alliance for the Production of African American

Ph.D.s in the Mathematical Sciences The Alliance consists of mathematics departments at four

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) together with departments in the mathematical sciences at

the three Iowa Regents universities

Less than 2% of all Ph.D. in mathematics awarded at US universities each year are awarded to African

Americans, a percentage that has remained static over the last 25 years. The goal of this project is to ease the

transition to graduate programs in mathematics for students attending HBCUs, with the aim of improving

these numbers.

2006 Conference

15-19 February

San Jose, CA

http://nsbp.org/

P. Vashishta, R. Kalia, A. Nakano DMR-0427188

W. Goddard, T. Cagin, P. Meulbroek, M. Ortiz,

A. van Duin DMR-0427177 and A. Grama DMR-0427540

Supported under an ITR award at USC : De Novo Hierarchical Simulations of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Materials

Computational Science Workshop for Underrepresented Groups

• Participants: 25 undergraduate students and 10 faculty mentors, primarily from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions.

•Hands on experience in parallel computing, Grid computing and visualization.

• Participants built a parallel computer and then used it to perform a number of parallel computing exercises.

Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) www.mrsec.org/prem

….broaden participation in materials research and education by stimulating the development of long-term, collaborative partnerships

between minority institutions and DMR-supported groups, centers and facilities

• Awards to minority institutions• Up to $750K/year for 5 years• First 4 awards in FY04

– CSULA (Cal Tech MRSEC)

– FAMU (Carnegie-Mellon MRSEC)

– UPR Humacao (Penn MRSEC)

– UPR Mayaguez (Wisconsin MRSEC and NIRT)

• FY06 competition currently underway Summer 05 - UPR Mayaguez PREM

Broadening Participation – The Challenge

FY05 COMPETITIVE RESEARCH AWARDS

ALL PIs FEMALE PI

MINORITY PI

NSF #% of AWARDS

6243100%

121119%

3105%

MPS #% of AWARDS

1591100%

21814%

805%

DMR #% of AWARDS

266100%

4316%

228%

Thank You!