Supporting Talented, Financially Challenged Mechanical Engineering Students Studying Robotics, Autonomous Systems, Machine Intelligence and Advanced Manufacturing

University Of Texas At El Paso, El Paso TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), a Minority Servicing Institution with a student body that is 83% Hispanic. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships for 23 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. First-year students will receive scholarships for up to four years. This project will engage students in Robotics, Autonomous Systems, Machine Intelligence, and Advanced Manufacturing (RAMIAM), opening up new career possibilities. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities, including mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, outreach projects, and participation in discipline-specific conferences. With the help of mentors, the scholars will create Individual Development Plans outlining their career goals and steps toward achieving those goals. As a result, the project will provide highly-skilled and well-rounded engineers in emerging technology areas, helping to maintain U.S. global advantages in an emerging multidisciplinary area. Furthermore, the project will contribute to a more diverse and inclusive U.S. STEM workforce, which is important to fill the current and predicted human capital vacancies and maintain the economic competitiveness of the U.S. The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. Three specific aims guide the project. First is to create awareness among current and future UTEP students about the importance of developing skills in the different areas of RAMIAM. Second is to use the well-established outreach mechanisms of the UTEP’s College of Engineering to identify and recruit talented students with unmet financial needs and support those students through a mentoring and engagement program led by faculty and graduate students. Third is to use data analytics and machine learning to examine patterns in institutional data, predict student performance, and provide feedback. The project will also design, implement, and evaluate a new rotational mentoring model that leverages diverse faculty backgrounds to provide students with multiple perspectives on their career paths. Results of this project will be made available through a project website, outreach activities, local and national conferences, and archive engineering and education journals. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. 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.