See Program Overview for a detailed outline of our insights research, motivations, and major issues we are addressing in undergraduate research funding.
Our research reinforce the understanding that there is an outdated paradigm that undergraduate students are unpaid or severely underpaid as they study and pursue careers in biotech or the life sciences. Furthermore, this disparity serves as a clear barrier to equity for students seeking hands-on-learning opportunities in STEM degrees.
Our impetus is to financially enable students (with a focus on those in URM, FGLI, and LGBTQ+ groups) to pursue research experiences in the biotech and life sciences field, which we believe will allow them to develop informed goals and gain autonomy over their future career prospects. We hope to supplement these financial scholarships with:
In the very early stages of our program planning, we tried to better understand the existing grant-making landscape by researching other models, how they are structured, and who they are generally funded by. We couple that we looked in:
A lot more have emerged in the past year — will continue to add to Existing Funds/Programs
After our initial research, we started talking to a lot of people who were doing similar things or people who wanted to support us**:**