On March 2, a $950,000 grant from the Department of Energy’s RENEW (Reaching a New Engine Sciences Workforce) program was awarded to Sonoma State Professor Alexandra Miller in partnership with Stanislaus State Associate Professor Wing To in order to teach high energy physics and keep students engaged with research and internship opportunities. 

The upcoming program, titled GROWTH-MSI (Growth and Research Opportunities With Traineeships in High Energy Physics at Minority Serving Institutions), will support ten students annually starting January 2024. 

The grant supporting this program will be split into three parts. First is the traineeship itself. Second is the funds for Miller to write a series of primer articles about quantum gravity for graduate students, and help create resources for undergraduate students interested in learning more about quantum gravity. These resources, which will also be available online, will make it easy for Miller, To, and other professors to help more students in the future. 

Finally, the grant will help create a consortium and community of different scientific institutions and schools in California. Miller says that “It will help us to create a community with the aforementioned research institutions, as well as with several other CSUs: Stanislaus State, CSU East Bay, SFSU, and Fresno State. This consortium will promote future collaborations among scientists at the various institutions.”

On top of resume-building, each student will receive $19,000 in scholarship and stipend support for the junior and senior years. As a part of the consortium, students will also have the opportunity to collaborate with professors and scientists from Lawrence Berkeley Lab and Lawrence Livermore Lab, the SLAC National Accelerator Lab, plus UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.

In addition to helping students reach new heights and helping them work on new research on high energy physics, these collaborations will also grow research at MSIs, and increase the visibility of MSIs in the scientific community. 

As explained by Professor To, “The GROWTH-MSI will create a pathway for students from underserved minority serving institutions (MSI) to learn, engage and pursue a career in particle and high energy physics. They will receive an introductory course in particle/high energy physics and learn about research opportunities from Department of Energy funded scientists and professors.” 

Third year physics major Somi Zingkhai says that the MSI scholarship is a much needed aid to underserved communities and groups of people. “The introduction of a new focus on careers in the field will enable these students to make more informed decisions on their future career,” said Zingkhai, “The introduction of a new focus on careers in the field will enable these students to make more informed decisions on their future career, and give them vital on-the-job training which will help them learn through application of their coursework.” 

Considering the field of high energy physics is overall lacking in diversity and representation, these partnerships with MSI’s can bring in new perspectives in the field that were previously absent.

The STEM department in general, especially when compared to other college departments, has had a reputation for being very difficult. As Professor Miller explains, these fields are vertical in nature, the courses build up upon each other, thus forming a very rigid prerequisite structure.

Miller explains, “If a student fails a class or just misses taking it for some reason, they can really get behind. This makes the degrees especially challenging for our working students.” 

Professor To also faced this challenge when he was in the same position as many of his students years ago. “From my own experience, I worked 32 hours/week during the last 2-years of undergraduate degree,” said To. “Having to work to pay for college reduced the amount of time I can spend on studying and working with classmates and impeded my ability to do research as an undergraduate.”

 With the program being both experience as well as a source of income, it will hopefully alleviate some of the stress faced, and the amount of funding will be enough for students to focus on their academics and research. The program will also be flexible in terms of when students can conveniently complete their work, so it doesn’t interfere with their other courses. At the same time, the work does help improve their knowledge of physics, helping them in their academic career, plus look very strong on their resume.

Zingkhai states that “enabling people to work at a traineeship who would otherwise be forced into working an unrelated retail job allows students to focus on studying. Investment in the knowledge of the younger generations is sowing the seeds for a prosperous and bountiful future.” Failure to do so will only the inevitable void being filled up by a lack of high value talent.

In addition to the efforts of both Professor Miller and To, Professors Marteen Golterman, Kathryn Grimm, Yongsheng Gao, and Anna Nierenberg of San Francisco State, Cal State East Bay, Fresno State, and UC Merced respectively. Participants will be selected from the aforementioned schools in addition to Sonoma and Stanislaus State, however, the program plans to expand to other CSU’s in the future.