Spring Break
Mentoring helps brings success to minorities in sciences
Julia Carlucci / Staff Reporter
Issue date: 3/31/09 Section: News
Nadya Mason will speak of the successes and pitfalls she encountered as a double minority in her career in science.
Mason, assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois, will be the guest speaker for the Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program's discussion, "Being a Double Minority in the Science World."
The discussion begins at 6 p.m. today in the University Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.
Mason received her bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1995 and received her doctorate in physics in 2001 from Stanford University.
The Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program is designed to help minorities succeed in their career choice in math or science.
Not every minority student involved with math and sciences at Eastern may know about the program.
Students are introduced to the program by their professors.
It does not target minorities by gender because another organization on campus, Women in Science and Math, does.
The program was initiated in 2006 and is still growing. It has enough resources to help those who join the program, but does not have enough for everyone to join.
The group targets minorities, because it sees they are the ones who are really at a loss, said Kathleen Bower, a member of the program's advisory committee and a mentor for the program.
Bower was inspired to join the program because she grew up in an inner city where minorities did not have the same chances she did to enter the math or science fields.
Bower, a geology professor, worked in a lab in Los Alamos, Texas, where all the scientists with a Ph.D. were white, while the janitors were Native American and Hispanic. Bower said she saw the second generation of Native Americans and Hispanics become lab technicians. After that, the third generations had Ph.D.s and were working side-by-side with the white scientists their parents and grandparents worked for.
Bower's entrance into the science field was similar.
Her grandfather was a miner, then her father was an engineer and now Bower has a Ph.D. in civil engineering.
She hopes the Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program will help minorities successfully enter the math and science fields.
The program's objectives include identifying minority math and science students and matching them with experienced and interested faculty members.
These faculty members will then help students identify what they want to do and how to achieve it.
The program helps students prepare for their career choice with skills they will need. Students are taught resume-building skills, how to dress and act for interviews and what graduate schools are good to apply to.
Mentors are allowed to bring students with them to class or meetings to get a closer look at what the work they want to enter entails.
Bower said she has never seen students walk away disappointed by what they learned from the program.
Also, the program brings in minority speakers from the math and science worlds to speak to the students and give them a chance to know the ups and downs of being a minority in the math and sciences fields.
The program will also have an earlier presentation from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today in the Phipps Lecture Hall in the Physical Sciences Building. The presentation is called "Nanotubes and the Electronics of Small-Scale Structures," and will be about recent advancements in nanoscale and mesoscopic systems.
Julia Carlucci can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENnewsdesk@gmail.com.
Mason, assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois, will be the guest speaker for the Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program's discussion, "Being a Double Minority in the Science World."
The discussion begins at 6 p.m. today in the University Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.
Mason received her bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1995 and received her doctorate in physics in 2001 from Stanford University.
The Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program is designed to help minorities succeed in their career choice in math or science.
Not every minority student involved with math and sciences at Eastern may know about the program.
Students are introduced to the program by their professors.
It does not target minorities by gender because another organization on campus, Women in Science and Math, does.
The program was initiated in 2006 and is still growing. It has enough resources to help those who join the program, but does not have enough for everyone to join.
The group targets minorities, because it sees they are the ones who are really at a loss, said Kathleen Bower, a member of the program's advisory committee and a mentor for the program.
Bower was inspired to join the program because she grew up in an inner city where minorities did not have the same chances she did to enter the math or science fields.
Bower, a geology professor, worked in a lab in Los Alamos, Texas, where all the scientists with a Ph.D. were white, while the janitors were Native American and Hispanic. Bower said she saw the second generation of Native Americans and Hispanics become lab technicians. After that, the third generations had Ph.D.s and were working side-by-side with the white scientists their parents and grandparents worked for.
Bower's entrance into the science field was similar.
Her grandfather was a miner, then her father was an engineer and now Bower has a Ph.D. in civil engineering.
She hopes the Minority Mentoring in Mathematics and Sciences program will help minorities successfully enter the math and science fields.
The program's objectives include identifying minority math and science students and matching them with experienced and interested faculty members.
These faculty members will then help students identify what they want to do and how to achieve it.
The program helps students prepare for their career choice with skills they will need. Students are taught resume-building skills, how to dress and act for interviews and what graduate schools are good to apply to.
Mentors are allowed to bring students with them to class or meetings to get a closer look at what the work they want to enter entails.
Bower said she has never seen students walk away disappointed by what they learned from the program.
Also, the program brings in minority speakers from the math and science worlds to speak to the students and give them a chance to know the ups and downs of being a minority in the math and sciences fields.
The program will also have an earlier presentation from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today in the Phipps Lecture Hall in the Physical Sciences Building. The presentation is called "Nanotubes and the Electronics of Small-Scale Structures," and will be about recent advancements in nanoscale and mesoscopic systems.
Julia Carlucci can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENnewsdesk@gmail.com.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
A. Minority
posted 3/31/09 @ 6:53 AM CST
It will be about "recent advancements in nanoscale and mesoscopic systems." Really? How 'bout that. How about a sentence or two to enlighten us, Julia?
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