New Alliance to Boost Number of Minority STEM Ph.D. Students

From Berkeley NewsCenter | February 13, 2014

An unprecedented alliance between UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, and Cal Tech aims to remedy a seemingly intractable nationwide problem: Too few underrepresented minority Ph.D. students in the mathematical, physical and computer sciences and in engineering are advancing to postdoctoral and faculty ranks at top-tier research universities.

“A sense of community and belonging are important aspects of any academic endeavor,” GGSC director and Berkeley professor Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton said, “and mentorship and feeling support from one’s mentors are important predictors of a student’s success and choice of profession." Mendoza-Denton is research director for the Alliance’s data collection and analysis work.