News & Events
USF's "Bridge to the Doctorate" recruits minority science students
TAMPA, Fla. (Sept. 9, 2007) - The University of South Florida has partnered with the Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and the National Science Foundation to create a cross-disciplinary graduate program aimed at recruiting minority science students. Focusing on research in marine science, biology, chemistry and biosensor design and application, the program is jointly administered by the USF Colleges of Engineering and Marine Science.
"Through this program we will provide research and professional development experiences for minority students - African-Americans, Native-Americans, Native- Alaskans, Pacific Islanders and Hispanic-Americans - committed to careers in science," said project director Ashanti Pyrtle, a professor in the College of Marine Science.
In its first year, the program has accepted minority graduate students who will be funded at $30,000 per year for up to two years. Doctoral students can get an additional two years of support at a minimum of $15,000 annually. The program pays a stipend, full tuition and fees, supports research experiences, conference and travel opportunities and workshops.
According to Pyrtle and Bhansali, the creation of new biological and chemical sensors for environmental and ocean measurements is a 'major thrust' of research and development efforts across USF departments, colleges and centers. Sensor design, fabrication, development and testing provide rich opportunities for graduate education.
According to Bhansali, sensor development crosses many scientific disciplines and represents one of the fastest growing areas through which scientific discoveries move into the marketplace.
Math Poster Winner (SMART Student)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March. 19, 2007) - Marqui Johnson, a SMART student who worked with Applied math graduate student Kristian Sandberg and Professor Jim Curry participated in the annual FGLSAMP Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in Science, Engineering and Mathematics) Expo. At the conference students of math and the sciences came together for workshops, oral and poster presentations, and networking. Marqui entered a poster presentation based on his summer eigenface project that he worked on that project with two other students: Tim Simmons of Morehouse (Mathematics) and Kou Xiong (CS-CU-Boulder).
We are happy to report that Marqui won first prize for the best math poster presentation. He also won the award for overall best poster presentation which means that he had the highest score of every poster presented, even the non-math ones. Marqui was awarded the Encarta Reference Suite 2000, Encarta Africana 2000, and a scanner.
Marqui says "I guess I'm getting better with giving presentations. I also met someone who had worked with the FBI on a project where they were researching implementing Wavelets in order to compress their files to a disk. Wavelets is a pretty hot subject!''
USF College of Marine Science students get national recognition
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (February 21, 2007)- The University of South Florida College of Marine Science held its annual “Endowed Fellowship Award Ceremony” Aug. 31 honoring this year's 17 graduate student recipients of a number of prestigious awards of support totaling $173,000.
Peter Betzer, dean of the college, noted that this year's award ceremony was the 23 rd such ceremony and that over 23 years 202 CMS students have received over $2 million in fellowships from private, corporate and civic donors.
In attendance was James Hicks, program manager for the National Science Foundation’s “Bridge to Doctorate” program. Through participation in the Bridge to the Doctorate program, USF recruits and NSF funds minority graduate students in science and engineering for up to $30,000 per year for two years. The USF program is one of only 18 in the nation. NSF program partners such as USF arrange total support for students following the initial two years of student participation in the Bridge to Doctorate program.