Ebonee Walker, a doctoral student in material sciences at Vanderbilt University, is spending the summer as an intern at the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center in Huntsville, Ala. She’s not allowed to go into detail about her assignment but says she gets to work with nanotechnology and aviation and missile systems.
A graduate of Fisk University, Walker gets free tuition to attend one of the world’s leading universities, a book allowance, a generous stipend, opportunities to work with and be mentored by great academic minds, and a chance to intern with a leading government laboratory.
Walker is part of the 6-year-old Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, a collaboration between Fisk and Vanderbilt universities that is poised to become the nation’s leading producer of minority doctoral graduates in astronomy, physics and material sciences, according to Dr. Arnold Burger, a professor of physics and vice provost for academic initiatives at Fisk, the nation’s largest producer of African-Americans with master’s degrees in physics.
The program produced its first Ph.D. last fall, and about two dozen more underrepresented minorities and women are in the doctoral program at Vanderbilt. Another dozen are working on their requisite master’s at Fisk.
The program also provides a window into how minority-serving and traditionally White institutions do and can use federal funding to boost minority participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematic fields — with funds set aside for MSIs and through partnerships.
The Bridge program, which boasts a 97 percent retention rate, has attracted 42 students since it was founded in 2004. Of those, 38 have been from underrepresented minority groups and 59 percent have been women, according to Dr. Keivan Stassun, an associate professor of physics at Vanderbilt and co-director of the program.
The program, officials say, provides a useful service to the nation in recruiting and graduating future scientists who will contribute to the body of knowledge either by working at universities or large national labs — and ultimately help the United States remain competitive.
