Minority Community College Students to Gain Experience with Nuclear Science
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Former UML physics students Andrew Douglas '22 and Alice Zhou '23 set up gamma ray detectors in the research lab of the nuclear group.
08/31/2023
By Brooke Coupal
Anyone who has watched 鈥淥ppenheimer鈥� will notice two common characteristics of the nuclear scientists highlighted in the summer blockbuster 鈥� they鈥檙e all white, and they鈥檙e all male.
Decades after J. Robert Oppenheimer鈥檚 time, there is still a lot of work to be done to increase diversity in the field.
鈥淣ot having diverse role models makes it very hard for underrepresented minorities to see themselves in this career path,鈥� says Physics Asst. Prof. Peter Bender.
The nuclear group in the Department of Physics and Applied Physics hopes to change that by exposing minority community college students to nuclear science, in which careers range from nuclear medicine to fusion research. The initiative, called Nuclear Recruitment Through Undergraduate Research, or NURTURE for short, is being funded by a three-year, $315,000 .
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鈥淲e want to get the students鈥� foot in the door and allow them to see that this is a career for everyone,鈥� says Partha Chowdhury, a physics professor and the director of the Radiation Laboratory. Chowdhury is the principal investigator on the project, with Bender and Physics Assoc. Prof. Andrew Rogers serving as co-principal investigators.
Beginning next summer, a cohort of six minority students from local community colleges will spend 10 weeks at UMass Lowell鈥檚 Radiation Laboratory, gaining hands-on nuclear science experience.
鈥淲e have a unique facility here that can be used to educate these students,鈥� says Rogers, citing the campus鈥� 1-megawatt nuclear reactor and 5.5-megavolt Van de Graaff particle accelerator.
The community college students will work alongside professors, postdoctoral fellows and graduate and undergraduate students while receiving training on experimental nuclear science. They will get a stipend for participating in the program.
Additionally, the students will have opportunities to take a trip to a national laboratory for a research experiment, as well as attending a national nuclear science conference to broaden their horizons.
鈥淭hrough these opportunities, we鈥檙e showing these students that this career path is possible,鈥� Rogers says.
鈥淲e hope to get more people from a broader community funneled into nuclear science,鈥� Bender adds. 鈥淲e鈥檙e only going to grow stronger as a field with a more diverse crowd.鈥�