Projects and Grants per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Scholars United by Chemistry:
Cultivating Excellence through Science Stewardship (SUCCESS)
Principal Investigator
Chad M. Risko
Department of Chemistry &
Center for Applied Energy Research
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506
Program
2022 Beckman Scholars Program
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
The University of Kentucky (UK) Department of Chemistry proposes to refine and resubmit the UK
Beckman Scholars Program entitled Scholars United by Chemistry: Cultivating Excellence through
Science Stewardship (SUCCESS). The participation of undergraduate scholars in research is central to
UK’s mission, and our scholars’ contributions and distinction in these endeavors is a significant reason why
UK is a beacon for higher education in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. UK has made significant
investments across our research enterprise to enable undergraduate research participation and achievement,
and SUCCESS will provide a unique opportunity to bridge these activities to enhance excellence.
SUCCESS will be driven by the ethic of stewardship, wherein Faculty Mentors will cultivate both the
professional and personal development of the Scholar to enable them to become future scientific leaders. A
highly multidisciplinary program, SUCCESS is built on the cornerstone of chemistry as the central science
that unites UK’s seven core research areas. SUCCESS holds a significant capacity for substantial
undergraduate achievement by combining our incredible undergraduate scholars with outstanding research
mentors in UK’s areas of research excellence.
SUCCESS Faculty Mentors will be recruited from across the comprehensive UK research portfolio to
provide Scholars with vigorous and stimulating research opportunities that underscore the foundational role
of chemistry within UK’s research strengths. Criteria for Faculty Mentor recruitment will include research
expertise, leadership at UK and in their respective scientific fields, and past and current funding levels.
While we seek Faculty Mentors with diversity in their research areas and career stages, the most significant
selection criterion will be an unwavering passion for undergraduate research mentoring, education, and
stewardship. SUCCESS mentors should engage in highly collaborative, cutting-edge research, and be
award-winning mentors and teachers. Each mentor will agree to ensure that SUCCESS Scholars are
immersed in a diverse training experience at the forefront of science, and that the Scholars will build a
professional and personal development portfolio that will propel them forward to meet their educational
and professional goals. We note that in the previous submission of SUCCESS, mentors were housed in the
Colleges of Agriculture, Food, & Environment (CAFE), Arts & Sciences (A&S), Engineering (CoE), and
Medicine (CoM), and were prominent members or leaders of nationally-recognized UK research centers,
including the Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER), the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA),
the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC), the Gluck Equine Research Center (GERC),
and the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits (JBIKS).
As with SUCCESS Faculty Mentors, SUCCESS Scholars will be recruited to ensure inclusive excellence.
Faculty Mentors will play a key role in this process, recruiting students that are already in their laboratories
and classes. However, we realize that many UK undergraduates may not be involved in laboratory research,
so we will partner with organizations across campus to actively seek out and recruit potential Scholars.
People, Units, and Organizations will that we will partner with include: Chairs and Directors of
Undergraduate Studies of participating Departments; UK Office for Undergraduate Research;
Kentucky/West Virginia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP); UK First Generation
Student Advising; UK undergraduate-led associations that attract STEM majors, including the UK Society
for Promotion of Undergraduate Research (UK SPUR), ChemCats (student-affiliate chapter of the
American Chemical Society), Alpha Chi Sigma (student-affiliate chapter of a chemistry professional
fraternity), IAmAWomanInSTEM (faculty-mentored program for female undergraduate students),
STEMCats (HHMI-funded program), and NeuroCATS (undergraduate neuroscience outreach club).
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Presentations will also be made to large-enrollment undergraduate STEM courses to make students aware
of SUCCESS at the earliest stages of their academic careers.
While the Beckman Scholars program is a research-focused program, there is emphasis on training the next
generation of scientific leaders. SUCCESS will develop the whole researcher by requiring both professional
and personal training inside and beyond the laboratory. The training and activities will engage the Scholars
in the multifaceted roles that scientists play and develop skills that will facilitate the Scholar’s growth as a
future scientific leader in their field of study. SUCCESS will partner with units across campus to provide
activities that may include: the creation and refinement of individual development plans (IDP); field-
specific research training, including hypothesis and experiment design, experimental techniques, data
analysis, and scientific verbal and written communication skills; responsible conduct of research (RCR)
training; discussions on professional writing & grantsmanship; community service beyond the laboratory;
and participation in the SUCCESS Roundtable series that will include conversations with leaders on topics
such as research ethics, laboratory safety, teaching and mentoring, entrepreneurship, management, diversity
and inclusion, and service learning.
SUCCESS will be evaluated by the professional trajectories of both Scholars and Faculty Mentors, and not
solely by the number of publications, grants, and proposals that arise during the program. The programmatic
distinction of SUCCESS within UK lies in the capacity to leverage UK’s greatest assets from our core
research areas, a laser focus on the Scholars holistic growth inside and outside of the laboratory, and
assessment metrics to enable robust evaluation of our program. Building on the exemplar scholar–mentor
model of the Beckman Scholar Program, SUCCESS will strategically align UK’s outstanding scholars,
gifted research mentors, strongest research assets, and undergraduate-research programs to ultimately grow
exceptional scientific leaders.
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Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 5/16/22 → 8/18/23 |
Funding
- Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
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Projects
- 1 Active
-
Beckman Scholars Program: Scholars United by Chemistry: Cultivating Excellence through Science Stewardship (SUCCESS)
Risko, C., Cooper, R., Miller, A. & Van Eldik, L.
Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
5/16/22 → 8/13/25
Project: Research project