Recruitment strategies to increase diversity of participation in STEM programs: The Rural Resiliency NSF cohorts' experience

KSUnite DEIB Conference Day 1 - November 14, 2022 - Breakout Sessions Period 3 (2:30pm-3:20pm)
K and S Ballroom

Women and members of historically excluded groups are consistently underrepresented in STEM. The National Science Foundation Research Traineeship at K-State, the Rural Resource Resiliency (R3NRT), is a small, interdisciplinary graduate program that prepares graduate students in STEM to solve the grand challenges at the nexus of Food, Energy, and Water, and strives to broaden participation in STEM through multiple recruitment efforts. For the R3NRT, the most successful recruitment strategies for broadening participation in STEM fields have been collaborating with university diversity officers and staff, and connecting NRT faculty and students to prospective students through in person meetings, Zoom meetings and email conversations. Enrollment data of the R3NRT show that the program has had 39 participants, 56% are women and 25% are members of historically excluded groups. In this presentation, we will describe the R3NRT Recruitment efforts, summarize the outcomes, and share lessons learned. Target audience: administrators, faculty, and graduate program coordinators.

DEIB Challenge Level: Intermediate

Presenters

Dr. Melanie Derby

Dr. Melanie M. Derby Dr. Melanie Derby is an Associate Professor at Kansas State University and holds the Hal and Mary Siegele Professorship in Engineering. Her research focuses on heat and mass transfer and the Food, Energy, and Water Nexus and has been sponsored by NSF, NASA, ASHRAE, ONR, and industry. She currently directs the KSU NRT which focuses on interdisciplinary FEW research and graduate education. Dr. Derby is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, KSU College of Engineering Outstanding Assistant Professor Award, and ASME ICNMM Outstanding Early Career Award.

Mirit Shamir

Mirit Shamir, LL.M., MS Mrs. Shamir is the Academic Services Coordinator for the Rural Resource Resiliency NSF Research Traineeship housed in the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at Kansas State University. She holds an M.S. in Environmental Policy from Michigan Tech where she was an IGERT scholar, and an LL.M from Tel -Aviv University. As the academic services coordinator, she actively recruits diverse prospective graduate students, and manages the day-to-day administrative and program functions of the graduate traineeship in rural resource resiliency for food, energy and water systems.

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