IBP's Current Projects

Pipeline to Health

Lead by Arkansas State University, this project aims to increase the number of qualified STEM workers in Arkansas by improving the number of STEM undergraduates who complete the BS degree at AR State University in Jonesboro (A-State), particularly women. The program pursues these goals by training successful, upper-level, female students to be near-peer mentors to incoming freshmen STEM students, and by establishing a STEM Sorority patterned on traditional campus sororities, to increase persistence to the STEM BS degree and beyond. IBP serves as an external evaluator for this project.  

Bridging the Divide

This program at Arkansas State University prepares undergraduates for doctoral degree through performing research and scholarly activities in STEM fields. The purpose of the Bridge Program is two-fold: (1) To inspire undergraduate students to progress into graduate studies by providing opportunities in the summer for research and professional development; (2) To ensure success in academic, research, and the professional development of graduate students (Masters and Ph.D.) by providing financial support, wrap-around mentoring, and a caring community so that the students will acquire the skills and experiences necessary to become successful scientists, innovators and role models. IBP serves as an external evaluator for this project. 

Academic Pathways

This program at Vanderbilt University is designed to prepare recently graduated doctoral students (Ph.D., Ed.D., etc.) and/or a law degree (J.D.) for competitive academic careers. The need is particularly acute to develop faculty candidates who come from diverse racial, ethnic and other backgrounds and experiences, as differing experiences, views and perspectives are of exceptional value for academic institutions in their research and educational roles. IBP serves as an external evaluator for this project.

CREST center for Biological Signatures and Sensing (BioSS

BioSS is lead by Fisk University and establishes a strong interdisciplinary, collaborative, and innovative research program. It promotes the creation of new knowledge by fostering collaborations among Fisk faculty members from multiple disciplines and scientists from other universities, national labs, and industries. It also establishes a “Bridge” for promising regional community college students to support their transitions to STEM programs in 4-year colleges. IBP serves as an external evaluator for this project. 

Southeastern Compact for Inclusive Student Transitions in Engineering and Physical Sciences (SCI-STEPS)

Lead by Vanderbilt University, this projectis an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot that aims to demonstrate the viability and effectiveness of an alliance scale collaboration that addresses critical academic transitions – for example, undergraduate to graduate programs – where underrepresented minority students have been shown to exit from STEM pathways. IBP helps the project leadership assess its use of the Collective Impact model of collaboration and show its readiness for an alliance-scale program. 

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

Infrastructure for Broadening Participation in STEM (IBP-STEM)

IBP’s Infrastructure for Broadening Participation in STEM (IBP-STEM) initiative supports the continued implementation of IBP’s activities and resources through IBP’s signature five-node approach to broadening participation in STEM fields and increasing diversity in the STEM workforce: (1) Creating and maintaining strategic web resources, open to all members of the STEM academy nationally, to make opportunities, best practices, and resources easily available and accessible to students, faculty and administrators; (2) Extensive face-to-face and virtual outreach to draw constituents to the resources available via IBP and disseminate information that supports students throughout their academic and professional STEM pathways and supports faculty and program administrators in their broadening participation efforts; (3) Catalyzing partnerships to cultivate communities of practice and a culture of diversity, reducing isolation among diversity practitioners and increasing information sharing; and (4) Synthesizing information to compile and translate research and best practices into materials and resources that are engaging, usable, and directly relevant to a broad constituency of students and STEM faculty, administrators, and program staff; and 5) Professional Development and Mentoring including resources for students seeking mentoring and resources for faculty and upper level students on being more effective mentors.  IBP-STEM initiative activities and resources support underrepresented students in their efforts to seek and successfully apply to research, funding, mentoring, and professional development opportunities and go on to succeed in their chosen academic and career pathways; assist faculty and administrators in their efforts to support and mentor students, build partnerships, and contribute to the pool of best practices; and grow diversity awareness and cultural competency in programs, departments, and institutions.

»»View the advisory board and Program Specialists associated with Infrastructure for Broadening Participation in STEM (IBP-STEM)

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

MS PHD'S

The Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Excellence in Earth Systems Science (MS PHD'S) is a national mentoring program in Earth Systems Sciences. Students are mentored by professional scientists, participate in professional society meetings and field trips, gain earth system science exposure, and benefit from networking and a virtual community.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

The Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program employed interdisciplinary graduate programs to train scientists and engineers to address the global questions of the future. The IGERT National Recruitment project's goals were to help IGERT faculty and Pis find students that are right for their programs, and to broaden participation in IGERT by helping underrepresented groups and small institutions participate in IGERT.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

»»Read more about the IGERT program

An REU-focused project to transfer and disseminate the effective student support and mentoring strategies that have been identified in recent research.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

This project supports AGEP alliances in institutional and faculty level networking as well as the recruitment and retention of students. The agep.us website provides a central repository for programmatic information, news, events, profiles, and contacts for AGEP alliances across the country.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

»»Read more about AGEP

IBP's "Building the STEM Workforce: Pathways for Recruitment, Retention, and Career Development" project supports NASA's OSSI initiative. Through this project, IBP leads a series of recruitment and retention efforts with a national network of colleges and universities along with three additional organizations with similar projects. The OSSI initiative involves streamlining the application and selection process for NASA funded educational opportunities such as scholarships, internships, and fellowships, with an overall goal of strengthening the STEM workforce and increasing the number of students successfully pursuing degrees and careers in the sciences.

Funded by: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

The Maine STEM website was developed in conjunction with the Maine STEM Collaborative. The Collaborative is a statewide initiative with two goals: 1) Ensuring that Maine students graduate with essential knowledge and skills in the STEM fields and 2) Encouraging Maine students to aspire to achieve higher degrees in the STEM fields. The Maine STEM web portal is a central repository of programs, news, events, profiles, and contacts in Maine. It also provides additional web presence for several ongoing state initiatives such as the Maine Girls Collaborative Project and the Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative.

This project was supported by the Davis Foundation, NSF EPSCoR and the Maine Math and Science Alliance.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

»»Read more about Maine STEM

The National Alliance for Doctoral Studies in the Mathematical Sciences is an alliance between a group of proven mentors in math sciences departments at several Ph.D. and master's granting universities together with mentors at math science departments at colleges and universities which serve a substantial number of underrepresented undergraduate students. IBP provides technical support to the National Mathematics Alliance, including website development, digital application tools, and data management.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

»»Read more about National Alliance for Doctoral Studies in the Mathematics

VCCEMP provides underrepresented minority 4th-5th graders and their classroom teachers with increased exposure to earth system science. The project engages teachers in the use of digital curriculum resources such as DWEL, DLESE, and NSDL. It also uses virtual mentoring activities to pair 4th and 5th grade students with undergraduate and graduate MS PHD'S program participants.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

A strategic set of outreach activities and complementary digital tools to network and support students and faculty involved in the National Science Foundation's ocean sciences Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

Through its ongoing efforts, COSEE-OS has identified key areas for future growth, including: (i) facilitating the creation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) resources that are conceptually linked to ocean-climate content; (ii) scaling up ocean scientists' impacts by taking advantage of networking infrastructure; and (iii) building tools to assess the quality of consensus-based products created by diverse communities.

The Center will expand its successful model of creating software that is flexible, transferrable, and user focused for the ocean science community. OS will share this model via workshops for scientists at other COSEE's. OS will scale up its regional initiatives to have national impact, with a focus on rural and inland audiences. In addition, a new partnership with the Institute for Broadening Participation is improving engagement of underrepresented minorities in OS opportunities, and will serve as a model for the greater Network. By supporting existing educational programs, OS will assist two small, but prestigious, research laboratories -- Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences -- in meeting their goal of providing effective research experiences for K-12 educators and "young scientists" in training. The Center's goal is to build Capacity nationwide, honing individuals' abilities to develop effective "Broader Impacts" (BI) activities. This is accomplished, in part, by engaging informal education institution partners such as Seacoast Science Center (SSC) and New England Aquarium (NEAq) to aid in the development of BI activities with scientists. The Center also supports the New England Ocean Sciences Education Collaborative (NEOSEC), a diverse network of over 40 organizations coordinated by NEAq, to build regional capacity by training its educators in planning and implementing BI activities for ocean scientists. This ensures that the content and products of current ocean science research can efficiently reach a broad audience in a timely fashion.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

An NSF Math and Science Partnership project to redesign and implement physical science curriculum at the middle school level.

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

UMaine's Rising Tide effort focuses on increasing the percentage of women faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Social and Behavioral Science (SBS) fields to develop a more diverse science and engineering workforce. Additional Rising Tide objectives include:
-Improving the climate at the University of Maine to enhance faculty retention
-Providing support for professional development to retain and advance women faculty
-Reducing isolation created by a small faculty community and limited numbers of women faculty

Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

»»Read more about A Rising Tide: Advancing Women and Leadership at the University of Maine