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ED REFORM

We Must Change How We Fund Graduate School

Kafui Dzirasa, Christopher D. Lynn, Jin Kim Montclare, Leia Stirling and Bill WuestSeptember 1, 2020May 30, 2021
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The National Science Foundation recently changed the criteria for its Graduate Research Fellowship Program, one of the most prestigious federal funding awards for graduate students, to prioritize applicants in certain quantitative and technical fields like artificial intelligence. While the agency clarified that no applicants will be excluded based on their area of study, favoring certain topics signals that some research areas are more important than others and prioritizes research agendas over investment in future scientists.

We, like many other scientists, are concerned that this change may limit funding for promising scholars from underrepresented groups or undergraduate institutions with fewer resources — an outcome that would run counter to the goals of the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act of 2017, to enhance our nation’s innovation. We believe that federal agencies like the NSF should be expanding funding for graduate students rather than reprioritizing who receives it. Channeling more funding directly to a wide array of individual graduate students, particularly those from underrepresented groups, will help empower a diverse next generation of scientists.

Read the full article online at Inside Higher Ed.

This article was produced by Footnote in partnership with Emory University, University of Alabama, New York University, Duke University, and University of Michigan.

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Contributed by

Bill Wuest

Bill Wuest

Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and Associate Professor, Chemistry
Emory University

In July of 2011, Bill began his career as an Assistant Professor at Temple University and in 2016 was named the Daniel Swern Early Career Professor of Chemistry. In 2017, he then moved to Emory University where he is currently a Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and Associate Professor of Chemistry. His research focuses on the modification of natural products through total synthesis in an effort to develop innovative, pathogen-specific therapeutics.

Christopher Lynn

Christopher Lynn

Associate Professor, Anthropology
University of Alabama

Christopher D. Lynn is a biocultural medical anthropologist focused on cultural impacts on health and human evolutionary biology. His training is in biological anthropology, but his orientation is as a biocultural medical anthropologist and human behavioral ecologist. He teaches courses in biological anthropology, human sexuality, evolutionary studies, neuroanthropology, primatology, and more.

Jin Kim Montclare

Jin Kim Montclare

Professor, Tandon School of Engineering
New York University

Jin Kim Montclare is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who is performing groundbreaking research in engineering proteins to mimic nature and, in some cases, work better than nature. She works to customize artificial proteins with the aim of targeting human disorders, drug delivery and tissue regeneration as well as create nanomaterials for electronics.

Kafui Dzirasa

Kafui Dzirasa

Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Duke University

Kafui is an Associate Professor at Duke University with appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurosurgery. His ultimate goal is to combine his research, medical training, and community experience to improve outcomes for diverse communities suffering from Neurological and Psychiatric illness.

Leia Stirling

Leia Stirling

Associate Professor, Industrial and Operations Engineering
Affiliate Faculty, Robotics Institute
University of Michigan

Leia Stirling is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering and Affiliate Faculty in the Robotics Institute at the University of Michigan. Her research quantifies human performance and human-machine fluency in operational settings through advancements in the use of wearable sensors.

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