STEM Alliance

The alliance brings together professionals from the worlds of academia, industry, medicine, and government to tackle some of the most intractable problems facing the sciences today.

Latest News

Expertise of Ron Brown Scholar Program Sought for Carnegie Mellon-Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation Partnership

Carnegie Mellon, Ron Brown Scholar Program To Partner on Recruitment of Graduate Students

Rales Foundation bets big on Carnegie Mellon STEM students

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Annually, the Ron Brown Scholar Program has approximately 1,200 undergraduates in its network. One-third attend Ivy League schools, and more than 50% of current undergraduates are interested in pursuing studies in science and technology fields. Ron Brown Scholars have a 99% graduation rate, and more than 30% have progressed to receive advanced degrees. Program alumni have become leaders in academia, science and technology, medicine and public health, business, public service, and the arts. In addition, Ron Brown reaches over 1,000 high school students each year through the Guided Pathway Support Program.

Dr. Marco F. Ellis

Assistant Professor, University of Illinois-Chicago Medical Center

Dr. Travis A. Gayles, MD PhD

Health Officer, Chief of Public Health Services, Maryland Department of Health (Montgomery County)

Dr. Diarra K. Lamar

Partner, Strategy&

Dr. Carmelle T. Norice Tra, MD PhD

Director, Clinical Research, Merck

Christopher A. Hunter, PhD

Director of Graduate and Postdoctoral Partnerships, Ron Brown Scholar Program

Jonathan W. Piper

Chief Scientific Officer, MIM Software

Dr. Tomeka L. Suber, MD PhD

Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Dr. Sara Whetstone

Obstetrics and Gynecology, San Francisco General Hospital

Ku McMahan, PhD

Team Lead, Securing Water For Food Grand Challenge for Development, Acceleration Team, US Global Developmental Lab at USAID

Sean P. R. Nolan, PhD

Senior Engineer, Pratt & Whitney

Lauren M. Goins, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow in Developmental Biology, UCLA

Petra Sander Ybarra, PhD

Family Caregiver

Eleanor W. Branch

Principal Product Manager, ServiceNow

Dr. Maris S. Jones

Surgical Oncologist, Kaiser Permanente, Santa Clara Medical Center

Dr. Tamika E. Bailey

Physician, Sutter East Bay Medical Group

Dr. Ghideon Ezaz

Assistant Professor, Liver Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital

D. Andre Green, PhD

Assistant Professor of Ecology, University of Michigan

Michael A. McDaniels

Data Engineer, Hinge Health

Dr. Sando K. Baysah Ojukwu

Pediatric Endocrinology Fellow, Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia

William A. Tarpeh, PhD

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University

Gabrielle L. Cole

Systems Engineer II, Northrop Grumman

Camille L.M. Everhart, PhD

Product Design Engineer, Apple

Dr. Keon K. Pearson

Resident Physician, Stanford Health Care, Scout Investor, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Software Engineer Intern, Facebook

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More News & Updates

Carnegie Mellon creates $150 million program to increase diversity in STEM fields

February 23, 2023

Carnegie Mellon University looks to eliminate barriers in higher education with $150M program

February 22, 2023

Carnegie Mellon, Rales Foundation embark on $150M effort to support underrepresented STEM students

February 22, 2023

Carnegie Mellon Launches $150M STEM Diversity Initiative

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Expertise of Ron Brown Scholar Program Sought for Carnegie Mellon-Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation Partnership

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October 15, 2019

Program Updates

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Introducing the Ron Brown STEM Alliance

We created the STEM Alliance to harness the experience of some of our most accomplished alumni to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the sciences. The STEM Alliance brings together Ron Brown Scholars working in academia, industry, medicine, and government to develop innovative approaches to increasing African American representation in critically important scientific and technical fields. Our commitment to inclusive excellence is, to me, both principled and pragmatic.

The principle is the same one that animates everything we do at the Ron Brown Scholar Program: we believe that talented, public-spirited young people can do amazing things if only they are given the opportunity. Our signature scholarship has amply demonstrated this over the last 25 years: 99% of our Scholars graduate from college, and the 437 who have graduated to date have collectively earned 250 graduate and professional degrees!

The STEM Alliance draws its members from the ranks of these Scholars, accomplished professionals who themselves represent the changing face of American innovation. Together, we are working to ensure that America’s STEM educators and professionals reflect our country’s diversity. But increasing African American representation is only one part of our mission: we are also focused on cultural change, on ensuring that our classrooms, labs, universities, and workplaces embrace the lived experiences of all people, and allow them to bring their full selves to bear on the work they do.

There’s a pragmatic side to this effort as well. Our world is confronting some daunting challenges, from infectious disease to climate change. Rising to these challenges will require the best of us, and the Science Alliance represents my fellow Scholars’ ongoing commitment to being a force for good collectively as well as individually. Supporting the education of and professional development of aspiring Black scientists has benefits that extend far beyond the students we serve: it also makes for better science. Diverse teams are able not only to recognize a wider range of problems, they also produce more innovative solutions. In business, ethnically and culturally diverse leadership teams tend to be both more profitable and more innovative than their homogenous counterparts. In academe, gender-diverse research teams outperform homogenous ones and ethnic diversity correlates strongly with increased impact, particularly when the proportion of underrepresented group members reaches a “critical mass.” An analysis of 9 million scientific papers bears this out: ethnic diversity correlated to increased impact for both papers and scientists.

I earned my own PhD in Comparative Literature from Penn, but I’ve dedicated my career to educating scientists. In college, on summer breaks from Harvard, I worked as a tutor and instructor at MIT’s Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science—MITES— program. My first fulltime job was as an English professor at Caltech. As the Director of Ron Brown’s STEM101 program, I helped prepare high school students from across the country to succeed at these and similar institutions. In other words, while I know firsthand the challenges facing our efforts to diversify the sciences, I’ve been daily inspired by the extraordinary promise of the talented students I’ve been privileged to work with. It is an honor to lead this team of my fellow Ron Brown Scholars in tackling this critical need.

The Ron Brown Scholar Program is proud to partner with academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and businesses who share our commitment to ensuring that all people, regardless of background, have the opportunity to develop their talents.

Thank you so much for your interest; if you have questions, are interested in pursuing a partnership, or would like more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me HERE.

Sincerely,

Christopher Hunter, Ph.D. RBS ’98