Minorities and women, minority women in particular, are underrepresented in academia, even more so in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Members of these underrepresented groups represent an untapped resource. Failure to fully develop talent and fully utilize resources serves as a threat to the nation's economy and global competitiveness. The National Institute for Faculty Equity seeks to address this persistent problem, in part by institutionalizing the professional development and career success of women and minorities in STEM.
NIFE offers resources for underrepresented faculty in engineering, including presentations and from the Minority Faculty Development workshops as well as from the Cross-Disciplinary Initiative for Minority Women Faculty conference.
BMES Coulter College is a training program focused on translation of biomedical innovations. Mentors in key design areas guide student teams through a highly dynamic process designed to help them better understand how innovations can meet clinical needs, while providing tools and approaches used to develop novel solutions for identified clinical problems. The program is supported by funding from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.
In a creative environment, participants will learn how to evaluate the best point of leverage within a given clinical need and understand how to evaluate possible solutions. By the end of the program, participants will understand how to balance providing clinical benefits alongside a viable commercial model.
The program includes pre-work to prepare for the program and integrates tours, lectures, consultations with mentors, team projects and presentations while onsite in August. Tailored professional development programming will also be provided to design faculty participants and networking opportunities will be provided to design faculty and student participants throughout the event.