Now beginning its eleventh year, the campus's Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP), which supports educational activities that enhance biomedical, behavioral and clinical research workforce diversity, recently was awarded its third grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue funding the program.
It supports students who are exploring the idea of graduate school and seeking research experience to strengthen their applications. The five-year, $1.7 million grant for PREP, overseen by Sandra Petersen, veterinary and animal science, Shelly Peyton, chemical engineering, and Lynmarie Thompson, chemistry, has seen more than 70 students complete UMass PREP, the directors report. Of those, 97 percent were accepted into Ph.D. programs on campus or other institutions. Over 85 percent have finished or are currently enrolled in biomedical or biobehavioral doctoral programs.
The supervisor say the project will continue to partner with NEAGEP institutions to identify prospective PREP students, and will sponsor joint activities with a new PREP program at UMass Amherst's NEAGEP sister institution, Boston University Medical School.
Formed in 1999 through an NSF grant, NEAGEP is a 15-institution alliance of faculty and administrators with a shared goal of developing new initiatives to help diversify the STEM workforce.