STEP-UP:
SHORT-TERM RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR UNDERREPRESENTED PERSONS
Deadlines:
- October 15, 2020 Online Application Portal Opens
- February 15, 2021 Application Deadline
- March 15, 2021 Notification of Acceptance
- Early June Academic School Year Ends
- Mid June Start of Internship
- Early August End of Internship
- Early-Mid August STEP-UP Research Symposium in Bethesda, MD; at the NIH.
Overall Goal of STEP-UP:
To increase the number of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students “in the pipeline” who are committed to a career in biomedical, behavioral, clinical, or social science research.
Summer Experience:
STEP-UP students work with mentors (professors, postdoctoral fellows, medical or graduate students, or research assistants) to develop a hands-on summer project. The project not only enhances the student’s knowledge and skills in a particular area of scientific interest, but also enhances both their overall research capabilities and interest in pursuing a research career.
Requirments:
- Student participants are required to work full-time (40 hours per week) for a minimum of 8 weeks.
- Student begin the program in mid-June, provided they have completed their spring classes.
- The summer session ends with the Annual STEP-UP High School Scientific Session and Summer Research Presentations, usually held the second week of August. This is at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. All expenses are paid by the program.
- Students are required to prepare an abstract and podium presentation (in PowerPoint format) of their summer research. Senior students will also prepare a poster. Funds are available through the program for poster preparation. Students will receive specific details for preparing their items for submission at a later date.
- Students and mentors receive stipends.
We are excited to continue facilitating future STEP-UP students to successfully complete their summer research internships and to assist them along their chosen college and career paths.
We are grateful to the other coordinating centers, to our NIH partners, to the NIH funding and to the mentors and students who give so much to this program.
This year we have launched an Extended Research opportunity for a limited number of alums.
Purpose
The STEP-UP program is designed to provide a short-term summer research experience for high school junior and senior students from racial/ethnic groups and disadvantaged backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral research. The purpose is to expose student participants to research in the NIDDK mission areas, including diabetes, endocrinology, metabolism, nutrition, and obesity, as well as digestive, liver, urologic, kidney, and hematologic diseases; although all areas of research are welcome.
The goal of this program is to increase the number of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students in the research pipeline who are committed to a career in biomedical, behavioral, clinical or social science research.
The goal of this program is to increase the number of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students in the research pipeline who are committed to a career in biomedical, behavioral, clinical or social science research.
NIDDK provides the funding and program oversight; however, the day-to-day coordination of the program is handled by one of four coordinating institutions, Stanford University being one of them. This is a national program and we make arrangements for students around the country to get connected to research facilities near their homes. Each student is paired with an established researcher and may be assigned to a research team. Students will work with staff on specific research projects.
Stanford STEP-UP Leadership
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, Ph.D., FSAHM, has been the Program Director for the Stanford Coordinating Center. She began with the program in 2007 while at the University of California, San Francisco, and then continued as Program Director when she was recruited to Stanford University in 2014. Dr. Halpern-Felsher is a developmental psychologist whose research has focused on cognitive, psychosocial and environmental factors involved in adolescents’ and young adults’ health-related decision-making, perceptions of risk and vulnerability, health communication, and risk behavior.
Sheila McLaughlin, MFA, has been the Project Coordinator since 2010. Ms. McLaughlin holds a firm commitment to assist youth during their high school years to achieve their educational and career goals.
Both Dr. Halpern-Felsher and Ms. McLaughlin are the first in their families to attend college, lending force to their individual commitment to the overall goal of the STEP-UP Program to increase the number of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students “in the pipeline” who are committed to a career in biomedical, behavioral, clinical, or social science research.
Specifically for the STEP-UP students, Dr. Halpern-Felsher has developed slide presentations for the entire cohort of STEP-UP students on topics including: “Getting Into College,” “Professional and Career Development,” and “Creating and Delivering Effective PowerPoint Presentations” that she presents at the annual Symposium held at the NIH. In 2015 our Stanford coordinating site launched weekly webinars for our students and their mentors. Presentations were held by Dr. Halpern-Felsher as well as participating mentors. The establishment of regular contact between our site and the interns and mentors, who are spread across states and time zones, strengthened and extended our mentoring opportunities as it created a stronger sense of community among the students themselves, and between coordinating centers and students.