The Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program Seeking Future Scientists

The Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (U*STAR) Program is designed to increase the number of well-prepared minority students who can successfully compete for admission to doctorate programs in engineering, biomedical or behavioral sciences. This program is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences.  The NIH/NIGMS mission is to improve the participation of historically underrepresented students in the sciences and increase the number of underrepresented students who matriculate directly to a Ph.D. program. Although this is the primary goal of the program, we encourage all students to apply.

Each trainee is required to have research experience that will potentially lead to a senior thesis, a research presentation at a professional meeting or a publication in a professional journal.

Faculty members in the trainee’s major department, or at other local research institutions, can serve as mentors for this research experience. With the assistance of the MARC program director, trainees can select the laboratory and research rotations to coincide with their own research interests.

In addition, each semester’s trainees are given:

* $969 monthly research stipend ($11,628 per year)
* Tuition and books paid for up to 4 semesters
* Research supply funds
* Paid travel to professional conferences and meetings to present research
* Academic, professional development and grad school prep workshops/seminars
* Networking with science/engineering peers, faculty and staff
* Required External Summer Research Experience: Paid travel, housing, and research stipend for one summer research experience outside SDSU
* Coursework in ethics, scientific writing, health disparities and graduate school application process

Upper division students majoring in one of the sciences or engineering and maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or greater, who are graduating in May 2015 are eligible to apply.  Low income, first generation and/or underrepresented students are highly encouraged to apply.

Applications are due April 15, 2013 for positions that begin June 1, 2012. To be considered, students must be graduating in May 2015.

Students can download an application, letter of recommendation forms and supplemental graduation plan from http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/casa/marc/

In May 2012, the SDSU MARC program graduated several scholars who went on to Ph.D. programs in STEM fields at Harvard, Virginia Commonwealth University, Scripps Research Institute, Arizona State University, UCSD, and UC Irvine.

For more information contact:
Thelma C. Chavez
MARC Program Coordinator / College of Sciences
(619) 594-7195
GMCS322B
thelma.chavez@mail.sdsu.edu