BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1542978
This article is part of the Research TopicReshaping STEM Education: Strategies for Curriculum Decolonization and Institutional TransformationView all 21 articles
Trailblazers in STEM: A Document Analysis of the Accomplishments of Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Alumni
Provisionally accepted
- 1Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
- 2University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California, United States
- 3University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) has a >30-year history of providing high impact educational experiences to undergraduates and graduate students of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In 2020, LSAMP program leadership published biographical information from 1,137 alumni across 36 alliances. In this article, data were extracted from that publication and analyzed by major discipline, listed degrees earned, and alliance affiliation. Doctoral recipient data were compared to the National Center for Science and Engineering Survey of Earned Doctorates data between 1992-2022. Key findings were that the LSAMP program has supported at least 6% of doctorates earned by POC in STEM fields since its inception. When disaggregated by discipline, 12% and 10% respectively, of doctorates earned by POC in mathematics and computer science and physical and earth sciences were LSAMP alumni. We identify factors contributing to variation between alliances in discipline and Trailblazer representation. We conclude that the LSAMP program has made a demonstrable impact on graduate degree earnings by POC since its start and suggest strategic recruitment and retention efforts based on specific alliance strengths. Continued congressional financial support of this program is pivotal to continue broadening participation in the STEM workforce.
Keywords: higher education, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, stem graduates, National Center for Science and Engineering Survey of Earned Doctorates, National science foundation (NSF)
Received: 10 Dec 2024; Accepted: 09 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Smart, Crawford and Chicas-Mosier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ana M. Chicas-Mosier, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 66045, Kansas, United States
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