Grand Challenges Team Awards (2024)

This proposal requests funding for a faculty team to address the grand challenge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Our research question is grounded in our experience at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), and its answer will be relevant to any university aspiring to serve a full demographic spectrum of students: What is the experience of underrepresented groups in STEM at CU Denver, with a specific emphasis on Hispanic engineering students? To answer this question, we propose a self‐study to understand the student experience and discover what aspects of CU Denver are working (and not working) for Hispanic engineering students. We propose to conduct this research by performing a broad landscape assessment and then talking to stratified samples of students to understand student experiences. In parallel, we will conduct a systematic review of research funding opportunities for STEM education, spanning multiple federal agencies. Taken together, the bottom‐up approach (from the self‐study) and the top‐down approach (from the review of funding opportunities) will lay the groundwork for an externally‐funded, national‐recognized effort to become an equity‐serving institution.

The purpose of the proposed work is to build a cross-disciplinary team to spearhead a campus-wide research and creative activities effort focused on outdoor recreation. The overarching goal of this effort is to take full advantage of the many benefits of outdoor recreation, including stimulation of research and technological innovation, improvements to physical and mental health, a rich source of historical data, increased environmental stewardship, and major economic impacts. Our team is partnering with Outside, Inc. to build a collaborative effort in outdoor gear design and testing, advanced manufacturing driven by machine learning, exercise physiology and human performance, smart city recreational infrastructure, the history of the outdoor industry and outdoor recreational equipment, and inclusive engineering education. Our team will work together to identify funding mechanisms for these areas of research, recruit additional team members from both CU Denver and outside partners, and submit proposals for new research. This Type II Planning Award will lay the groundwork for our long-term goal of establishing a National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) focused on outdoor recreation research, education, and community engagement. Our vision is for this new IUCRC to be the nationwide leader in research, innovation, workforce development, and community engagement aimed at increasing access to the many health benefits, economic development, and opportunities for innovation driven by Colorado’s culture of outdoor recreation.