Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions (2022) / Chapter Skim
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4 Pathways into Space Sciences
4 Pathways into Space Sciences
Pages 70-80
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From page 70... ...
Acquiring such knowledge and experiences takes time and begins with entry into higher education, where most scientists and engineers first begin to acquire foundational knowledge as well as exposure and involvement in authentic research. The committee defines and discusses what constitutes authentic research experiences below, but to put it simply, it means "real" research or experiences that involve direct engagement with the actual work of missions or that provides training that is directly relevant to real mission work.
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From page 71... ...
space missions, and reveal important patterns of major missed opportunities and ongoing disparities into the ranks of potential future NASA mission leaders. First, only about 2% of all firstyear college students in the United States express an interest in a physical sciences major.
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From page 72... ...
In contrast to other STEM disciplines like biology or social sciences, physical sciences lose ~90% of students arriving at college with an interest in those fields. SOURCE: Reproduced from M
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From page 73... ...
. Finding: The number of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans combined receiving PhDs in astronomy in any given year has never exceeded single digits, the number of African American PhDs in astronomy in any given year over the past decade has averaged ~1, and the number of Native American PhDs in astronomy in any given year remain too small to count.
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From page 74... ...
Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino American PhDs in physics and astronomy. SOURCE: Produced using data from the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics, see https://www.aip.org/statistics.
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From page 75... ...
. 3 The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education program defines authentic research as experiences in which students: formulate and test a hypothesis to make a discovery; perform observational, descriptive, or computer-simulated research to interpret, organize, or analyze existing information in new ways; choose a topic, identify resources, and gather, analyze, and share their data; use creativity and inquiry to generate knowledge (not simply replicate or report what is already known)
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From page 76... ...
Put plainly, a mission proposal would not be deemed as Excellent overall if its plan for engaging and developing diverse talent for future missions is short of Excellent. Conclusion 4-3: NASA is uniquely positioned to provide individuals with the sorts of research experiences that are relevant to future mission roles, and there is arguably nothing more authentic than experiences linked to actual NASA missions.
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From page 77... ...
Finding: A previous NASA SMD-funded program, MUCERPI, focused on training in state-of-the-art research methods and preparation for future NASA leadership specifically through partnerships with minority-serving institutions, has been defunded. Relatedly, it may also be worthwhile for NASA to consider the equivalent of NSFs EPSCOR kind of program (Melkers and Wu 2009; Wu 2010; Feldman et al.
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From page 78... ...
OSTEM has a specific focus of strengthening support for underrepresented communities, addressing Presidential Executive orders on promoting equal opportunity to URMs,6 Asian and Pacific Islanders,7 for participation in federally sponsored programs. NASA Minority University Research and Education Programs (MUREP)
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From page 79... ...
However, all researchers that become PIs will need to flow through one of the pathways visualized here. It is important to note that mission leadership includes other critical team members in addition to PIs, such as Co-Is, deputy PIs, and project scientists, who all play key roles in shaping the science of the mission.
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From page 80... ...
80 ADVANCING DEIA IN THE LEADERSHIP OF COMPETED SPACE MISSIONS FIGURE 4- 4. Schematic of the STEM workforce in proximity to NASA mission experience following the ‘braided river' concept FIGURE 4.4 Schematic of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce in proximity to NASA mission experience following the "braided river" concept.
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