United States

15th Conference on Understanding Interventions 2023 

NIH Funding for Interventions and Research on Interventions for the Biomedical Research Workforce

keynote

### Welcome to the 2023 Understanding Interventions/NSF CREST Annual Conference
Welcome to our annual conference, a gathering where the knowledge of our scientific communities share what they have researched since we last met. If it is your first time attending, then thank you for stepping into our world! If you are a returning guest, then thank you for coming back! Whether you are attending for the first or the fourteenth, we treasure your trust in what we have to offer. We promise to make it worth your while.

As in years past, we have put together an energetic collection of seminars, deeper dives, speeches, posters, and workshops to whet your appetite for learning. 

We are delighted that you have chosen to attend the 2023 Annual Understanding Interventions (UI) Conference, in partnership with the NSF Centers for Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Program. 

### About the Conference 
This conference was established to facilitate dissemination and exchange of hypothesis-based research on interventions and initiatives that broaden participation in science and engineering research careers. The conference is designed to create a dialogue among behavioral/social science and education researchers, evaluators, and faculty in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields who participate in intervention programs. Workshops, sessions, and posters will communicate effective strategies from successful STEM intervention programs, present results from empirical research studies, and synthesize the translation of research findings into practice on STEM learning, undergraduate research, graduate education, and student retention.

Thank you again, and welcome! 
**[Download Program Agenda](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rTKTrWC2DOqnIF06po5xo4buAL3mPTqZ/view?usp=sharing)**

This conference was established to facilitate dissemination and exchange of hypothesis-based research on interventions and initiatives that broaden participation in science and engineering research careers. The conference is designed to create a dialogue among behavioral/social science and education researchers, evaluators, and faculty in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields who participate in intervention programs.

Focus of the intervention

This project goal seeks to develop programs for increasing underrepresented students in higher education; namely in agriculture. The issue is that the agricultural industry struggles to fill positions with qualified agricultural workers. (Alston et al, 2020). As reported by the USDA, agricultural science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has been described as the ""Leaky Pipeline,"" as fewer students remain in higher education. The supply of qualified food, agriculture, natural resources, and human (FANH) science professionals, especially those of underrepresented groups is lagging far behind the growing global demand. An employment outlook report released by USDA and Purdue University (2015) offered, ""while there is an average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher in agriculture-related fields, it remains 22,500 short of the jobs available annually"" (p.1). Since many underrepresented students decide not to major in the FANH sciences, we (faculty and administrators) are developing innovative programs to recruit, retain, mentor, and then graduate these students. This USDA-NIFA-funded project utilizes a collaborative approach with administrators and faculty from universities among 1890 Land Grant Universities (LGUs).



Study population

The population targets underrepresented first-generation students (secondary and postsecondary).

Contextual factors

To gain input from individuals representative of the 1890 LGUs, online surveys were used to collect their ideas for recruiting, retaining, mentoring, and graduating the students. The limitations of the project would be not being able to generalize the findings outside of the students not majoring at one of the LGU’s Colleges or Schools of Agriculture.



Outcomes of the intervention

August 2020-Current, the researcher along with partners of seven, 1890 LGUs continue to develop and offer programs such as Mentor Collective, which offers online mentor-mentee pairings between lowerclassmen and upperclassmen students. Due to COVID-19 pandemic challenges, virtual Career Fairs and tours have proven successful in exposing students to the various academic programs at the 1890 LGUs. As a result of the online surveys administered, the following preliminary findings were collected. Administrators (n=11) suggested offering Open Houses to recruit high school and community college students, use social media platforms (Twitter), distribute flyers, and engage students in undergraduate research with faculty researchers. Faculty (n=32) offered providing field experiences in academic and corporate research laboratories, offering internships, and student travel to conferences.



Relevance to the UI community

This project is of great relevance to the Understanding Interventions community because it allows the sharing of best practices for increasing the number of underrepresented students in the various sciences such as Food Science, Animal Science, Environmental Science, Agriscience, etc. Offering best practices to increase students in higher education is most relevant across all disciplines. For our study, we recognize that even though more minority students are enrolling in higher education, they continue to lag behind their non-minority peers. As it relates to the FANH sciences, Goecker, et al., (2015) reported “although the number of agricultural graduates has increased slightly in recent years, more qualified individuals are urgently needed because more than 39% of positions are filled by non-agriculture graduates”(p.1). To address this, our project continues to develop best practices to recruit and graduate students in higher education. Due to the various programs offered at the 1890 LGUs, the UI community is able to learn from and give input on what has and has not worked with increasing underrepresented students in all science disciplines

Addressing the Leaky Pipeline: Increasing Underrepresented Students in Higher Education (Agriculture)

**Introduction.** Mentoring is recognized as an essential factor contributing to career advancement and professional success as it increases the student's social capital. Mentoring students in college helps them feel more connected and engaged on campus, ultimately improving student outcomes. Individual-centered mentoring serves the individuals' aspiration, which is only met by developing a network of mentors that supports long-term career and professional goals. Research shows that the focus should be to seek mentoring from multiple mentors rather than one mentor. This study is conducted at Savannah State University, Tuskegee University, and Alabama State University. Our goal is to increase mentoring options available to diverse mentees by providing an online national mentoring and networking platform via virtual mentoring, online messaging, and group communication. With the ubiquity of online platforms like Facebook and Skype, most mentees and mentors are familiar with online communication tools. By utilizing the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) networking and mentoring platform, we can virtually connect mentors and mentees from across the nation 
**Methods.** Our intervention includes three levels of mentoring: High-Touch, Low-Touch, and a comparison group. The High-Touch group received synchronous faculty mentoring, peer mentoring, coaching, coaching groups, and the asynchronous mentoring opportunities provided on the NRMN platform. The Low-Touch received access to asynchronous mentoring on the NRMN, which includes mentoring from faculty and peers, special interest groups, the ability to form a particular interest group and invite others to join, and a course on Unconscious Bias. The comparison group had access to the traditional resources available to all students at their respective institutions. The dependent variables are the engagement and success of the participants immediately post-intervention and throughout their college careers. 
**Results.** Data presented are from Cohorts 1 and 2 (2019-2021). Participants were 98% African American, 71% female, and 26% first-generation college students. All participants were first-semester freshmen majoring in STEM fields/behavioral sciences. During the first year of the project, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the mentoring activities provided by the project. As a result, all participants assigned to the High-Touch group were reassigned to the Low-Touch group. Questions regarding student needs resulting from the pandemic were added to the post-survey. 
**Conclusion and Discussion.** The engagement was measured by the number of activities completed in each category on the NRMN platform. Regular interaction within social networks enables information exchange and knowledge sharing crucial to career and professional growth, and social network engagement is essential in increasing social capital. Both the High-Touch and Low-Touch groups had access to the NRMN platform. group. The activities included course completion of the Unconscious Bias course, mentor/mentee connections, peer connections, interest groups joined, comments posted on the platform, and connections requested from mentors and peers.br> 
**Acknowledgment.** This study is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health UO1GM132769.

Impact of Freshman Mentoring Intervention on Student Success and science identity

**Introduction:** Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a public university in Chicago, serves 6,000 diverse students and is one of two, public Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) in the Midwest. NEIU is one of only two Non-Tier 1 institutions to receive the NIH MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) grant—a training grant that prepares undergraduates for PhD programs. Our undergraduates reflect a nontraditional population with the greatest challenge in entering the STEM and Biomedical career pipelines; minority, marginalized, first generation and low-income college students (Chen, 2013). Minorities can’t see themselves as having the necessary aptitude for success in math and science, preventing them from considering biomedical careers (Oppland-Cordell, et al 2012).
 Four barriers exist for non-traditional students pursuing PhD programs in biomedically relevant fields: (1) Academic. Non-traditional students that are first generation lack foundational academic preparedness for college, particularly in advanced science and math courses necessary for PhD programs, (2) Professional Exposure. Non-traditional students lack knowledge about the options for graduate study and connections with those who are in academic careers. (3) Financial. Low-income students have to work to pay for increased tuition costs thus their academic obligations suffer and there is little time to work in research laboratories. (4) Emotional. Nontraditional students have many issues navigating work, family, financial needs and school obligations within a culture that doesn’t resemble the culture of their family and friends (Hurtado & Ruiz Alvarado, 2015).
 
**Method:** To address these four barriers, the NEIU MARC program implemented interventions that focus on socio-emotional dimensions; creating learning contexts that reduce anxiety or negative affect (Raker et al, 2019), building skills, and teaching concepts with specialized tools (e.g., virtual models). Our program was designed to reduce anxiety, increase self-efficacy and empower our trainees to confidently conduct research using: (1) A specialized curriculum with a quantitative emphasis; requiring each trainee to minor in statistical modeling while taking research intensive classes designed by the program directors. The classes focus on developing competency in research skills, writing and oral communication using hands-on activities and specialized visuo-spatial tools (DeSutter & Stieff (2020). Each scholar submits the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application and a research thesis in their second year of training. (2) Intense Research Experience for our trainees for 15 hours/week during the academic year which also required multiple research presentations at conferences such as Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRMCS). We had trainees interact with established scientists who came to campus to present their research. (3) Tuition waivers and stipends were provided to enable trainees to focus fully on their school work and research. (4) Intensive mentoring by the program directors and faculty advisors. Attendance and program activities were recorded and an external evaluator conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses based on surveys and focus groups. 
 
**Results:** All of our 23 trainees graduated with a Bachelor’s degree while 80% enrolled in PhD programs (e.g., Harvard University, University of Washington in Seattle, Northwestern University) and our first cohort is about to complete their doctoral degrees. 
**Implications:** Key factors have been suggested in the literature as essential for optimal learning and are associated with success of our trainees: 1) creating a close-knit community of support where trainees felt they were cared about and respected, 2) intensive advising and 3) immersive hands-on research experience in which a project was fully defined, completed and disseminated.
 
**Acknowledgments:** Funding Sources NIH/NIGMS T34 GM105549 PIs Church, Stojković, Hibdon Grant Title: NU-STARS for Northeastern Illinois Student Training in Academic Research in the Sciences.

NIH MARC NU - STAR program: Preparing non-traditional students from an urban open-access school for biomedically relevant PhD programs: One size does NOT fit all

Second Year Assessment of Perceptions of Institutional Inclusivity among Building Up Participants - Poster

STEM Analysis of Instruction In-Person and Remote (STEM-AIIR) - Poster

**Introduction:** The well-being of academics at universities, including students, staff, and faculty is a topic of increasing concern. The lack of well-being may be attributed to the current academic context which does not consistently provide cues that affirm social inclusion to all members of the academic population (Estrada et al., 2018). The lack of cues that affirm the dignity of others has consequences and undermines a basic need that people are more likely to survive and experience well-being when feeling socially connected (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Dunbar & Barrett, 2007). Further, literature shows that social connection can reduce experiences of stress in pressured environments such as academia (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; USPHS, 2023; Valtorta et al., 2016). This study examines the role of kindness (defined as actions that affirm dignity and social inclusion) in promoting connectivity and well-being among academics. 
**Methods:** The Social Influence of Kindness Study was conducted through a one-time anonymous 10-minute online survey via Qualtrics. Participants were recruited using the snowball method via email and social media based on interest in taking a 10-minute survey about Kindness and Dignity during Spring 2020. For this study, 182 participants were selected for analysis based on their occupation designation of studying or working within an academic institution. Each survey included a written reflective micro-narrative in response to the prompt "recall an experience of kindness" and consisted of measures of Kindness Given, Kindness Received, Institutional Identity, Stress, and Well-Being. 
**Results:** We found engaging in acts of kindness, as measured by two novel psychometric rating scales Kindness Received (alpha=.927) and Kindness Given (alpha=.859), was significantly associated with increased institutional identity, well-being, and reduced stress. Our structural equation model (SEM) further validated the correlation results with receiving kindness. Interestingly through the SEM we found conducting acts of kindness had a significant negative relationship with institutional identity and reduced stress. Qualitative analysis of micronarratives on kindness showed that feeling safe and being acknowledged are the most common ways people describe experiencing kindness, an affirmation of their dignity. 
**Conclusions and Discussion:** This study shows that receiving kindness among academics has the potential to improve institutional identity, well-being, and reduce stress. Further, the results show that receiving kindness and giving kindness can be reliably measured amongst students and faculty in academia. We provide evidence that reflecting on experiences of kindness promotes positivity, with the potential to encourage people to conduct further acts of kindness. Together these findings provide knowledge that can inform workshops and interventions to improve social connection and inclusion amongst diverse academics. This study contributes to broader research highlighting positive contextual factors that promote the persistence of diverse students and faculty in academia. 
**Acknowledgments:** The project was funded by NIH grant #R01GM138700

The Influence of Kindness on Academic Well-Being - Poster

Biomass is an organic material that normally comes from plants or animals. The discovery of converting biomass wastes into graphene is a successful route for recovering sources because it is sustainable, renewable, and abundant. For both basic research and practical applications, finding a novel way to produce graphene with a high yield and excellent crystalline structure is critical. For this research, waste disposable paper-cups will be used for the formation of graphene sheets by using KOH activation while using FeCl3 as a catalyst. The chemical activation of carbon-rich materials using KOH as the activating agent is a ground-breaking technique because of its lower activation temperature and higher yield [1]. Also, the obtained graphene will have a well-defined micropore size distribution and extremely high surface area. The graphene nanostructure can be used as a filler for thermoplastic polymers since it provides polymers of several functional characteristics, which are not accessible by using other types of fillers. For this research, the extracted graphene nanoparticles will be used as a filler in polypropylene to enhance its morphological, mechanical, and thermal properties. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) tests will be used to determine the thermal properties of the graphene reinforced polymer composites. Also, X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, SEM, TEM, and tensile tests will be used to determine the mechanical, microscopic, and morphological property.es of GRPC. The results obtained from this research indicates that high yield and high-quality graphene materials can be synthesized by using biomass resources rather than conventional methods and can be used as a filler in polymers that could improve the mechanical and thermal performance when dispersed uniformly.

Morphological, Mechanical, and Thermal Properties of Polypropylene Reinforced with Graphene Nanoparticles Extracted from Paper Cups.

The Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (CEES) was established in October 2010 with $5M in funding from NSF. CEES Phase II award from NSF started on October 1, 2019. CEES personnel include eight faculty members, 1 program coordinator, and 4 research staff members. CEES is addressing the challenging interdisciplinary problems and is paving the way for scientific and technological breakthroughs in energy engineering to meet short- and long-term national needs. The Center’s research mission is accomplished through 3 distinct research thrust areas and strong education and outreach programs. The research areas include Bio-Energy (Energy crop cultivation and gasoline/diesel-like hydrocarbon fuel production from energy crops), Offshore Wind Energy (Massive offshore power generation and risk analysis with big data), and Environmental Sustainability (Produced water treatment and environmental impact evaluation with life cycle assessment). The Center’s education and outreach activities are carried through the Energy Engineering and Research Learning Initiative (EERLI), which includes a myriad of activities that engage K-12 students through graduate students. The researchers, including our students, have published 1 book, 185 peer-reviewed publications and have given more than 220 presentations at regional, national, and international conferences. CEES faculty and staff are also supported by other leveraged funding of about $12.82 M from NSF, USDA, Tran-SET, and industrial partners. CEES has supported more than 220 students, including 73 graduate, and 145 undergraduate students. The Center also established state-of-the-art research laboratories with high-quality equipment using leveraged funds.

Center for Energy & Environmental Sustainability (CEES)

Center for Sustainable Lightweight Advanced Materials (C-SLAM) was established at Tuskegee University (TU) with the funding from NSF for a period of five years starting October 2018. Collaborators from within the USA include Auburn University (AU), Cornell University (CU) and several industry and national laboratories. International collaboration is built upon the existing relationships with researchers from Brazil and India. The research focus areas of the proposed center include three synergistic subprojects: I). Nanobiomaterials Extraction, II). Biopolymers Design and Synthesis, and III). Advanced Green Composites. Activities in Subproject I include synthesis of a variety of nanomaterials from waste resources like rice husk, bone ash, fish scales etc., extraction of cellulose in various forms and lignin from plants, and production of nanofibers. Activities in Subproject II include synthesis of biopolymers from lignocellulosic biomass, development of resins with excellent thermal and mechanical properties from agricultural and food processing wastes. Subproject III activities will focus on development of advanced green composites through use of plant fibers, fibers from liquid crystalline and bacterial cellulose. In addition, durability and toughening characteristics of advanced composites will be enhanced through development of autonomously self-healing polymers and composites, toughened fibers and resins. Partnership from within the USA and abroad, personnel from industry and national laboratories will ensure addressing basic science questions while solving global problems. 
Funder Acknowledgement: NSF Award: HRD NSF Crest #1735971

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NIH Funding for Interventions and Research on Interventions for the Biomedical Research Workforce

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