PI's
PI Shan de Silva has over 20 years experience sponsoring Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) with NASA and NSF. His first 11 years in academia were spent at Indiana State University focused on research in undergraduate institutions (RUI). At the University of North Dakota from 2001 to 2006, he was Director of the North Dakota NASA Space Grant Consortium and the North Dakota NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). In this role, he directed over $3 million in Federal monies towards STEM-focused, K-12, higher education, research infrastructure development, public outreach and informal education programs to promote the development of the future technical workforce.
An annual REU program was implemented as part of the higher education portfolio with ten students in mentored research experiences each year. Enhancing diversity was a key driver of these programs, with several alumni from tribal colleges in North Dakota. A GIS training program focused on Native Americans (NativeView) was also implemented for three years, in collaboration with Nebraska, Montana, and Oregon. A required part of the administration of this program was designing assessment and evaluation plans based on SMART goals and associated metrics. The results of these efforts are documented in annual reports to NASA Space Grant and NASA EPSCoR management. He continues his Space Grant activities in Oregon as Associate Director of the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, and as a NASA Space Grant Fellow, providing advice and consultation to the NASA Space Grant management in the NASA Education Division.
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Co-PI Dawn Wright has over the last 15 years been involved in a variety of GIS mapping and analytical studies of the marine environment, culminating in the publication of the first book on marine and coastal GIS (Wright and Bartlett, 2000). Her ESRI Press book Undersea with GIS (Wright, 2002) is used in several university classrooms and professional development workshops. She has recently teamed with other marine scientists to develop a comprehensive data model for coastal and marine data (Arc Marine, dusk.geo.orst.edu/djl/arcgis), the reference book for which (Wright et al., 2007) is also used in university classrooms. She has adapted several NSF- and NOAA-funded research projects in seafloor mapping and marine GIS to various marine science and GIS education and outreach materials, for workshops and events aimed high school students, professional resource managers and the general public. These include the National Geographic/NOAA Classroom Exploration of the Oceans Virtual Teacher & Educator Workshops, and ocean literacy and outreach activities sponsored by the Sustainable Seas Expeditions and the National Geographic.
Wright has been asked to serve as a keynote speaker at several conferences for middle and high school girls in science, as well as to an international audience for the ESRI Education User Conference. On the OSU campus she has been an active member of the Association of Faculty for the Advancement of People of Color (AFAPC, http://oregonstate.edu/groups/afapc) and its various programs in support of OSU Diversity Development, as well as the four student cultural centers of the Minority Education Office (Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center, Asian-Pacific Cultural Center, Native American Longhouse, and the Centro Cultural Cesar Chavez). Wright has also participated in OSU's Native Americans In Marine and Spaces Sciences (NAMSS) program. In 2008 was an invited participant in the Hampton University/Old Dominion University/Virginia Institute of Marine Science Hall-Bonner Program for Minority Doctoral Scholars in Ocean Sciences.
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Co-PI Robert Duncan has directed the Native Americans in Marine and SpaceSciences (NAMSS) and Native Americans in Science, Engineering and Natural Resources (NASENR) programs. These have involved the supervision of 8-10 Native American students per year for 2 years, performing mentored research in STEM subjects. He is co-PI (co-director) of a current NSF-funded summer REU program at the Hatfield Marine Science Center on the Oregon coast. This program sponsors mentored research projects for 20-22 undergraduate students for 10 weeks each summer. He is co-PI of a proposed Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Program for increasing minority participation in STEM subjects among 5 Pacific Northwest research universities (in review). In the last 5 years, as Director Student Programs at the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Duncan has overseen an increase in the number of under-represented students earning graduate degrees in the atmospheric sciences, oceanography and marine resource management. Under-represented students now represent 6% of domestic student enrollment through COAS' participation in the University’s Diversity Pipeline Graduate Fellowship program. This requires a joint commitment between COAS and the OSU Graduate School to provide students with 2 years of support. Duncan has been instrumental in linking students to faculty advisers and teaching assistantships.