National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) grant provides scholarships to high achieving financially needy students. The number and size of awards vary based on the availability of funds and scope and capacity of the projects. Each year normally 80-100 new S-STEM institutional awards are awarded and each individual award usually does not exceed $600,000 in direct costs. Professors Urmi Ghosh-Dastidar (PI, Mathematics), Sandie Han (Mathematics), Diana Samaroo (Chemical Technology), and Armando Solis (Biological Sciences) successfully secured Advancing Student Futures in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics NSF S-STEM grant (Award # 1458714; $616,288) (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1458714) in 2015.

This grant provides academic institutions with funds for student scholarships to encourage and enable academically talented students demonstrating financial need to enter the STEM workforce or STEM graduate school following completion of an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate degree in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. Because retention and graduation rates in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics reveal a profound underrepresentation of women, this grant will place a heavy emphasis on enrolling greater numbers of female students in these programs and in providing evidence-validated interventions to support their retention, graduation, and workforce entry. Advancing Student Futures in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics builds upon intensive analysis of institutional data on retention and graduation in the programs targeted in this S-STEM project and will implement a comprehensive set of academic and social interventions such as and Peer-Led Team Learning and other cohort-strengthening high impact practices.