Preparing stem technicians for bioscience data acquisition and analysis

The National Science Foundation awarded a $349,997 Project Grant through its STEM Education (CFDA 47.076) program to Merritt College, a community college division of the Peralta Community College District. This grant supports the development of a new Bioscience Data Analysis Certificate program at Merritt College. The program aims to train STEM technicians in experimental design, data collection from automated lab equipment, and data analysis of large biomedical and life science datasets using tools like Excel, Tableau, R, and Python. The project involves designing an integrated curriculum of three new courses, establishing physical and digital infrastructure to support the program, and implementing a recruitment and retention plan to increase enrollment and completion among underrepresented minority students. The results of this work will be disseminated nationally to advance STEM technician education.

Abstract

Addressing global challenges in health, climate, energy, and agriculture requires a highly skilled stem workforce that is knowledge-based and science-driven. Benchtop multimode plate readers, digital imagers, and RNA/DNA sequencers, generate enormous amounts of data requiring employees to be data literate. Life science employers are looking for employees who have expertise in lab bench skills and in computing, data analysis, and bioinformatics. The goal of this project at merritt college is to develop a bioscience data analysis certificate program that will prepare students to perform data analysis in applied bioscience research. The program will train stem students to design, set up and execute experiments; operate and collect data from automated equipment; and conduct data analysis of large data sets. This project will help fill the bioscience, biotechnology and life science pipelines with well-trained individuals with both experimental and data analysis skills that are in high demand by industry. This project will educate stem technicians to design bioanalytical, sequencing, and imaging assays on high throughput and high content equipment. Students will collect, clean, and organize the resulting large data sets and conduct data analysis utilizing biostatistics, excel, tableau, and the programming languages r and python. Three specific aims will guide the work of the project. First is to develop a new bioscience program with three integrated courses leading to a certificate of achievement. Second is to design and implement physical and digital infrastructure to support the program. Third, and finally, is to put in place a sustainable recruitment and retention plan to fill each new cohort of students, with an emphasis on increasing the number of underrepresented minorities enrolling and completing the bioscience data acquisition and analysis technician certificate of achievement program. The results of this work will be disseminated locally, regionally, and nationally through websites, social media, industry advisory meetings, and conferences. This project is funded by the advanced technological education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced technology fields that drive the nation's economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.