BROADENING DIVERSE PARTICIPATION IN S&E FOR WORKFORCE AND SOCIETY

The Division of Human Resources Development (HRD) in the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources (NSF/EHR) serves as a focal point for NSF's agency-wide commitment to enhance the quality and excellence of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research through broadening participation by historically underrepresented groups and institutions. The Division's programs aim to increase the participation and advancement of underrepresented minorities and minority-serving institutions, women and girls, and persons with disabilities at every level of the science and engineering enterprise.

Projects in the HRD portfolio address multiple STEM disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Currently funded HRD projects that are geoscience-aligned are in geographically diverse locations, such as Connecticut, North Carolina, West Virginia, South Dakota, and Hawai'i, and are supported by various HRD programs such as the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP).

Also, many NSF programs have developed strategies for partnering across divisions and directorates to leverage available resources to meet NSF's strategic goals and to benefit the (geo)science community. For example, the GEO directorate's Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) program also provides support for increasing diversity and has partnered with HRD in co-funding a number of projects.