UAMS receives $1.3 million grant for recruiting high school students to STEM fields

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for its Arkansas Technology and Data Science in Health and Medicine (AR Tech-DaSH) program.

The five-year grant from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will support an outreach exposure program focused on technology and data science in health and medicine for high school students, teachers and the community, primarily in Northwest Arkansas.

AR Tech-DaSH will incorporate imaging technologies and a data science curriculum focused on health and medicine in classroom outreach programs, a 10-day summer camp, community outreach events hosted by the high school camp participants serving as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) ambassadors, and outreach focused on virtual STEM and data science to students and teachers across the state.

“The goal is to get students excited about STEM and data science careers so that the future workforce in these fields better reflects the diverse population in the U.S.,” said AR Tech-DaSH program director Kevin Phelan, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences in the College of Medicine on the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus.

The program will target underserved and underrepresented students in Northwest Arkansas and will revolve around three major health concerns prevalent in the region – cardiovascular, obesity/diabetes and immunology/cancer.

“Arkansas is a relatively poor, rural state with one of the lowest per capita income and education levels in the country,” Phelan said. “It faces the same challenges as other states in trying to prepare for the demands of a properly educated and diverse STEM workforce. Arkansas students desperately need early and repeated exposure to STEM and data science to be prepared not only for future careers but also to enable them to make data-driven decisions about lifestyle choices that affect their health.”

UAMS plans to arrange visits to ninth-grade classes at schools in both rural and urban districts in Northwest Arkansas to provide students with experience using a variety of medical-related technologies, such as stethoscopes, ultrasounds, infrared and CT imaging, and data science-focused activities.

A 10-day AR Tech-DaSH camp for 25 students each year will provide an integrated exposure to medical-related skills, clinician-patient simulations, research and case-based discussions of the three primary health concerns. A major focus of the camp is to provide students with an exposure to data science skills using health or medicine-related datasets.

Virtual outreach sessions will also be provided to rural classrooms across the state. Virtual teacher training workshops will show teachers how to incorporate imaging and data science into their classroom curriculum.