[ad_1]
Nearly $1 million in grant funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Experiential Learning in Emerging and Emerging Technologies (ExLENT) program will support a university initiative aimed at providing Syracuse-area high school students with exposure to emerging technologies. It was done. The funding is being provided through NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, which was established two years ago and codified with the CHIPS and Science Act.

Syracuse City School District students working on experiments
The initiative, the Syracuse University Physics Advanced Research Technology Summer High School Internship Program (SUPER-Tech SHIP), is a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics and the Syracuse City School District (SCSD). Jennifer Ross, professor and chair of physics, is the principal investigator. The co-principal investigator is Mitchell Soderberg, professor and associate professor of physics.
“This program provides an opportunity to engage both the local community of high school students who may be interested in future STEM careers and the undergraduate and graduate students at Syracuse University who will work with them and leverage their experience. “to really grow as leaders, teachers, and scientists,” Soderbergh says.

jennifer ross
Through SUPER-Tech SHIP, student interns learn skills and concepts related to quantum information, semiconductors, and biotechnology during a six-week program. This is based on a successful pilot program conducted by the Department of Physics in the summers of 2022 and 2023. That program, Syracuse University Research in Physics (SURPh), placed SCSD students and recent graduates in his six-week paid internship, during which they worked. Together with faculty researchers in physics laboratories and classrooms. Ross said he was a student at the time when Ruell Branch ’24 told him that a former classmate from SCSD Henninger High School was interested in experiencing hands-on learning in the university’s physics lab. This led me to develop this program.
“I’m very focused on educating people about the benefits of physics and science, especially those who have historically been excluded from the field due to cultural stereotypes,” says Ross. . “I want to give people opportunities, and this program is a way to give people the opportunity to learn about other career paths.”
SUPER-Tech SHIP, like SURPh, aims to create STEM career pathways for historically excluded groups by engaging them in authentic research experiences and providing mentoring and peer networks. Masu. SCSD’s student body is 48% Black, 15% Latinx, and 1% Indigenous. 85% of students are economically disadvantaged. To recruit students to the program, a physics faculty member will visit her SCSD classroom to facilitate participation. Applications will be evaluated based on the student’s tenacity and grit, not on their science experience.

Mitchell Soderbergh
After an orientation “boot camp,” interns work in pairs on long-term research projects in the lab. Ross said the interns may work on biotechnology in the biophysics lab and investigate the mechanical properties of bacteria. Particle detection using semiconductor technology and new detection schemes. Or in astrophysics, working to understand how black holes collide and tear apart stars.
Past participants in the SURPh project will return as peer mentors and participate in research alongside current interns. Interns also benefit from seminars on science topics, professional development workshops, lunch-and-learns with academic and industry instructors, and weekly activities that introduce them to different areas of campus. The six weeks conclude with a poster session and a celebratory event attended by the intern’s friends, family, and teachers.
Ross said that encouraging the next generation of creative problem solvers to work in the technology industry is essential for the United States to remain competitive in the technology industry, and that “creativity requires diversity of thought. “It’s necessary, and it often comes from a diversity of thinkers.”
She also notes the synergy of this program with the upcoming arrival of Micron Technology in Central New York. “Micron will need many workers in its manufacturing and production plants, and the experience our students will gain will help them understand the basic science and cutting-edge technology that Microchip supports.” she says. “Developing our local economy by training people in our community who have incredible potential to make the world a better place through high-tech solutions to the world’s problems is the right thing to do. Syracuse is committed to making this development.” It’s the perfect place.”
[ad_2]
Source link