Related papers: The Harvard Science Research Mentoring Program
There is an increasing worldwide demand for people educated into science and technology. Unfortunately, girls and underprivileged students are often underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education…
Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from healthcare work to astronomy research. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills…
The scientific community needs tools that help early-stage researchers effectively communicate their findings and innovations to the public. Although existing general-purpose Large Language Models (LLMs) can assist in this endeavor, they…
Top-down, user-centered thinking is not typically a strength of all students, especially tech-savvy computer science-related ones. We propose Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) introductory courses as a highly suitable opportunity to foster…
Joining a research group is one of the most important events on a graduate student's path to earning a PhD, but the ways students go about searching for a group remain largely unstudied. It is therefore crucial to investigate whether…
Research Software Engineering is the application of professional software skills to research problems. Those who do this are called Research Software Engineers or RSEs for short. RSEs work closely with researchers in a collaborative fashion…
As LLMs make their way into many aspects of our lives, one place that warrants increased scrutiny with LLM usage is scientific research. Using LLMs for generating or analyzing data for research purposes is gaining popularity. But when such…
Same-race mentorship preference refers to mentors or mentees forming connections significantly influenced by a shared race. Although racial diversity in science has been well-studied and linked to favorable outcomes, the extent and effects…
Software engineering students often struggle to appreciate empirical methods and hypothesis-driven inquiry, especially when taught in theoretical terms. This experience report explores whether grounding empirical learning in hype-driven…
Knowledge tracing---where a machine models the knowledge of a student as they interact with coursework---is a well established problem in computer supported education. Though effectively modeling student knowledge would have high…
Background: Software project management activities help to introduce software process models in Software Engineering courses. However, these activities should be adequately aligned with the learning outcomes and support student's…
Studying the factors that influence the quality of physics PhD students' doctoral experiences, especially those that motivate them to stay or leave their programs, is critical for providing them with more holistic and equitable support.…
Underrepresentation in STEM fields starts early, with elementary students already showing differences based on gender and race in their interest in science, belief in their ability to do science, and belief that their personal identity…
Inspired by the numerous benefits of mentorship in academia, we study "informal mentorship" in scientific collaborations, whereby a junior scientist is supported by multiple senior collaborators, without them necessarily having any formal…
Computer programming was once thought of as a skill required only by professional software developers. But today, given the ubiquitous nature of computation and data science it is quickly becoming necessary for all scientists and engineers…
This paper reflects on a AI research project carried out by a team of high-school and early-undergraduate students under the mentorship of graduate researchers and ably assisted by AI tools. We share our experience in not only on the…
We describe a unique environment in which undergraduate students from various STEM and social science disciplines are trained in data provenance and reproducible methods, and then apply that knowledge to real, conditionally accepted…
Many science advances have been possible thanks to the use of research software, which has become essential to advancing virtually every Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) discipline and many non-STEM disciplines…
We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and…
Large Language Models possess skills such as answering questions, writing essays or solving programming exercises. Since these models are easily accessible, researchers have investigated their capabilities and risks for programming…