Washington, D.C., Aug 23 - Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) announced today that the National Science Foundation (NSF) will award two grants totaling $1,051,474 to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

The first NSF grant for $987,000 will support the UT System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program which will be under the direction of UTEP Professor Benjamin Flores.  The funds will be used to sponsor a group of 12 talented, underrepresented minority Bridge to Doctorate fellows during their first two years of doctoral training in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.  The overall goal of this project is to advance the national and university goal of increasing the number of underrepresented minority students who enter and successfully complete doctoral training in STEM fields and develop into leaders and role models in academic, governments, or industry sectors.

The second NSF grant for $64,474 will support collaborative research entitled “Project UPLIFT (Universal Portability of Learning Increased by Fun Teaching).”  Project UPLIFT collaborating institutions are UTEP, Ohio University, and Georgia Perimeter College.  The grant will be under the direction of UTEP Professor Lawrence Lesser.  Project UPLIFT will offer college statistics teachers engaging classroom mini-lessons and resources consisting of fun items, including cartoons, jokes, quotes, songs, and videos.  UPLIFT’s impact will be broad – the fun based items are being tailored for, and tested in, diverse populations of students representative of the 800,000 taking introductory statistics in the U.S.   

“As co-chair of the STEM Caucus, I am pleased that the National Science Foundation has awarded UTEP these two grants.  The grants will help UTEP as it strives to reach Tier 1 status,” said Congressman Reyes. “I congratulate UTEP and all those involved in this important research.”

The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…" With an annual budget of about $6.9 billion, NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.