RaMP: Diversifying the National Biology Workforce through New York Transdisciplinary BioSciences (NY-RaMP)

Mentoring the next generation of a diverse scientific workforce is critical to accelerate innovative science and promote a positive national future. The research network in New York combines trans-disciplinary biosciences across academia, industry, and research institutes with many creative minds and a talented workforce, however senior positions typically lack diversity.

Research professors and trained educators of the Hunter College Belfer Research Alliance will lead the New York Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates in Biological Sciences (NY-RaMP) trans-disciplinary program. The mentoring team of NY-RaMP will provide research and professional development opportunities to launch the careers of recent science graduates lacking research experience.

The NY-RaMP program will provide high-impact research immersion and education in trans-disciplinary cell, molecular, and bioinformatics, with a focus on discovery science. The immersion experiences are for inquisitive recent graduates who have limited research experience. This program will enable the selected emerging scholars to be trained by research professors actively involved in collaborative cell signaling research.

Importantly, NY-RaMP will work to provide the nation with a much-needed diverse trans-disciplinary biology trained workforce.

The NY-RaMP program provides one-year biology research experiences for three cohorts of ten recent graduates under the umbrella theme of trans-disciplinary experimental, computational, and applied biosciences to investigate cellular signaling. Cross-departmental City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College professors serve as the principal investigator (PI), the coordinator and co-PIs, and the mentors, in collaboration with co-mentoring teams from other New York state institutions.

Together these trans-disciplinary scientists bridge the diversity of people and science that New York has to offer in scholarship and workforce development. The program encourages emerging scholars to become biological thinkers and develop into scientists. The NY-RaMP connects the selected emerging scholars to the CUNY Brooklyn-based Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) DNA Learning Center for molecular biology and gene-based orientation boot-camp (in addition to follow-up field trips), to State University of New York's (SUNY's) leadership and campuses, to the Skirball Science Learning Center (at Hunter College), to the Cornell Center for Cultural Humility, to active NY Biology Industry field trips, and to visits to NY-area Colleges and Universities.

This trans-disciplinary inquiry focused program is designed for engaged collaborative discovery-science for mentors and mentees to gain deep understandings of cellular signaling in a diverse comprehensive environment.

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.