Project Synergy: Developing Connections at the Interface of Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, and Data Science

This project will address the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. Lewis University is a Catholic, comprehensive, emergent Hispanic-serving, commuter-majority university with a high proportion of first-generation students.

Over its five-year duration, Project Synergy will provide four years of scholarship support to 23 unique full-time undergraduate students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in five science and engineering majors: physics, chemistry, biochemistry, computer engineering, and data science. Students will be prepared for modern careers in science and engineering by activities in research methods, collaborative work, and interdisciplinary approaches.

Cohort-building strategies include: a two-week boot camp for incoming scholars, living-learning communities for residential students, shared course experiences, immersion in interdisciplinary collaborative research projects, career preparation through sustained faculty mentoring, interaction with visiting speakers, internships, and career workshops. Scholarship students will be recruited from areas whose students are minoritized in STEM, including school districts in inner-city Chicago and in rural Illinois.

By monitoring the progress of its scholars, Project Synergy will study the effectiveness of its interventions on persistence, retention, and the development of STEM identity.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific objectives include: (1) provide four years of scholarship support for 23 undergraduate students in five STEM majors; (2) achieve first-to-second year retention rates of at least 83% and four-year graduation rates of at least 74% among Synergy Scholars; (3) place 94% of graduated scholars in STEM employment or graduate programs; and (4) prepare students for contemporary careers in science and engineering.

It is well known that development of interdisciplinary perspectives and collaborative skills are most effectively realized in the context of sustained mentorship and shared scientific experiences. For this reason, mentorship, undergraduate research, internships, and cohort-building are priorities of Project Synergy’s planned interventions. The expected representation of commuter, first-generation, and demographically minoritized students among the Synergy Scholars provides a unique opportunity to advance understanding of the impact specific interventions have on the these demographic groups.

In addition to retention and career-trajectory data to evaluate project outcomes, the team plans to interview scholars to monitor development of STEM identity, attitudes toward science, and a professional mindset. These data will be disaggregated to determine any differential impact on residential versus commuter students and will be compared with parallel surveys of non-scholars in the same majors.

Project outcomes will be disseminated widely to the STEM education community using social media, formal presentations at local and national meetings, and publication of journal articles. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields.

It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.