S-STEM: Training for Environmental Stewardship of the US Virgin Islands

University Of The Virgin Islands, Charlotte Amalie VI

Investigators

Abstract

The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) is providing training and financial support for 20 academically talented, but financially challenged students in Caribbean natural resource conservation and management in its Masters of Marine and Environmental Science (MMES) program. The MMES program is responding to a demonstrated need for professional training in this region with serious threats to its natural resources and whose economic viability is closely tied to the state of the local environment. UVI students and the U.S. Virgin Islands population are comprised predominantly of groups underrepresented in STEM related fields. Many individuals in these groups find that financing education to the level of Masters of Science impossible and therefore move into other careers. UVI is helping to fill the need for professionals with understanding of Caribbean natural resource conservation and management by recruiting students from under-represented groups and providing financial support, academic tutoring, faculty mentors, and funding for research and travel to professional meetings. The intellectual merit of UVI's S-STEM project is based in the MMES program's success in involving students from under-represented groups early in locally-relevant research and developing novel approaches to the conservation of the natural resources of the Caribbean. This project has broad impacts within the territory and beyond through its training of a diverse cadre of future scientists who will ultimately be stewards of the natural resources of the Virgin Islands and similar environments around the world.