T11 Closing the Diversity Gap in Geoscience: Successful Models, Best Practices, Benefits, Outcomes, and Next Steps

Sunday, 1 November 2015
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 337

SUCCESSFUL MODEL FOR INCREASING DIVERSITY AND CAPACITY IN GEOSCIENCES THROUGH A NOAA COOPERATIVE SCIENCE CENTER

Paper number: T11-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:00 AM – 9:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

The NOAA-EPP Cooperative Science Center (CSC) program funding to establish the Interdisciplinary Scientific Environmental Technology (ISET)Center was responsible for the creation of a BS program in Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology and a PhD concentration in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&T) and the development of research capacity in atmospheric sciences, sensor technology, and computational research at NCA&T and five partnering minority serving institutions. The number of minorities graduating in geosciences at both the undergraduate and graduate levels significantly contributed to increasing the diversity of the geoscience workforce. The ISET program successfully utilized a partnership model between national labs, industry, and universities to provide cutting-edge research, educational and professional development opportunities for students, postdocs and faculty. The outcomes of this model, lessons learned, and recommendations will be presented.