The faculty mentors in this program have successful records of funding, research excellence, and directing undergraduate and graduate student research, including research by underrepresented minorities. The research expertise of our mentors includes evolution, ecology, molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics and systematics. One of our mentors is an under-represented minority and 3 are women. The proposed URM program is expected to have clear broader impacts of training underrepresented minorities as well as intellectual merit in the high quality research that will result. Several assessment tools will be used to track students while they are in the program as well as after they graduate. Our program will specifically target African-American and Hispanic students (16 total).
UNO is partnering with SUNO (an HBCU) for this URM proposal because we would like to reach the broadest group of under-represented students as possible, and our close proximity (less than 1 mile apart) allows students who are taking classes at one institution to easily participate in a research experience at the other. Our major goals are (1) to provide a diversity of opportunities for research in biology (ecology, evolution, molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics), (2) to offer a range of different faculty role models that can be matched to meet student needs and interests, (3) to provide a structured program beginning with general training in research methods, followed by hands-on research ultimately culminating in the presentation of research results, and (4) to provide a tiered mentoring process involving faculty, graduate students, former Undergrad Mentoring in Environmental Biology (UMEB) students and URM students from previous cohorts. Our program will also expose students to presentations and discussion with established scientists from underrepresented groups to encourage the pursuit of graduate studies.
Step 1: microbes are covered with Carbol Fuchsin that stains only mycobacteria red. Step 2: incubation for 5 min.
Step 3: Acid Alcohol removed Carbol Fuchsin from non-mycobacteria.
Step 4: Methylene Blue stains negative bacteria in blue
URM student Ms. Green is shown collaborating with undergraduates of SUNO of the NSF RAPID oil spill grant. Apparently, collaborations can be fun.
URM mentee Ms. Ciara Green presented proudly her research at the 2011 Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM, Jan 24-26 in Washington, DC. She was accom-panied by other presenting students from Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) and mentors such as Dr. Illya Tietzel.