PREM – UPRM – Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials

Wisconsin - Puerto Rico Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials

This proposal partners the universities of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez (UPRM) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) to create richer educational and research opportunities for Hispanic students in Materials Science and Engineering and, thereby, increase their representation in the Materials community.

This is a University of Puerto Rico Project, Award #1827894

Who We Are

This proposal brings together 26 researchers in the areas of soft materials, catalysis and adsorption, crystallization and pharmaceuticals. We have divided the approaches into three interdisciplinary research teams that will address fundamental problems in these materials, and we also have a group focused on education.

We are a community dedicated in motivating students into pursuing careers in STEM. We have many undergraduate and graduate students working with PI’s from our team. Our goal is to grow our community by exposing students to the different disciplines in the STEM field.

Vision

The Wisconsin – Puerto Rico Partnership for Research and Education in Materials (WIPREM) combines the shared vision and expertise of University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW) and three campuses of University of Puerto Rico (UPR) (Mayagüez, Medical Sciences Campus and Río Piedras) to form multidisciplinary and multicultural teams that seek to:

Make transformative advances in research involving a diverse range of materials with complex nanostructured interfaces, ranging from inorganic nanostructures for catalysis to next generation pharmaceutical materials and active soft materials.

Leverage the institutional environments of the partnering universities to develop research-inspired educational curricula and experiences based on effective mentoring across all participant levels, with the overriding goal of creating a pathway that broadens participation of underrepresented groups, particularly Hispanic Americans and women, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Goal

The overall goal of the WIPREM is to facilitate the creation of a diverse workforce by broadening participation of Hispanics and women in STEM fields by leveraging the unique educational expertise, cultural environments, and strong relationships of the partner institutions. During the fourth year of this project, the WIPREM continued creating a strong and sustainable research and education partnership between UPR and UW that expands participation in STEM of underrepresented participants at all levels of the pipeline from K-12 students through faculty through a series of initiatives that promote recruitment, retention and degree attainment. These activities are organized by members of the Education and Outreach Team (EOT).

The long-term technological impact of the research pursued in WIPREM is enormous, including nanostructured materials for chemical transformation of sustainable biological feedstocks into commodity chemicals, new formulations of small and large molecule hierarchically structured materials for separations, new pharmaceutically active materials, and novel chemical and biological sensors and assays.

Researchers

Teams

Areas