Native Americans are typically underrepresented in STEM careers but some new grant money could encourage Native American students to become interested in science.
University at Buffalo physics instructor Ciaran Williams has been awarded a five-year, $400,000 National Science Foundation grant towards his theoretical work for the Large Hadron Collider Project.
Williams plans to use the grant to get Native American students more involved with science. His idea is to host an after school program where undergraduate students occasionally assist by lecturing teens at Salamanca High School on interesting aspects of physics. Salamanca has a large Seneca Indian Nation student population.
Williams also plans to take a small group of the top students to visit the Fermi National Accelerator Lab in Illinois. It is the same particle physics lab where he did postdoctoral research.