Science students at East Mississippi Community College will soon have the opportunity to participate in research at Mississippi State University through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant.
The Bridges to Baccalaureate program will select 10 EMCC students majoring in STEM fields to participate in research in behavioral and biological sciences at MSU. The $1.1 million NIH Research Education Program grant will allow students to work in MSU labs while being paid a competitive rate for 10 weeks during the summer. As the program continues, up to 20 students per year may be allowed to participate.
“It’s called a REU, which is a research experience for undergraduates,” said MSU assistant professor of biochemistry Jonas King, the grant’s principal investigator. “There’s other opportunities for that at Mississippi State. Two other tracks, but this is an REU funded by the NIH, and it’s targeted toward helping promote diversity and help getting some students interested in biomedical and behavioral research.”
King said the students would likely be able to choose from several labs to work in at MSU in fields such as virology, entomology, psychology, microbiology, molecular biology and psychiatry, among others. He also said most of the students’ time would be spent in the lab, with weekly meetings where the students will be trained as a group.
“In this region especially, it will be one of the better things like this they could do, especially for the summer, it will be a really good thing,” King said.
King, who is a Northwest Mississippi Community College graduate, said it was not common for community college students to have the opportunity to perform research in a university lab and be involved in active research. He said the program could potentially open up opportunities for students after graduation.
“They can join as a sophomore, but if they’re a freshman, we can cover them for potentially two years, and if they transfer to Mississippi State we have this money from the NIH we can offer combined with money from Mississippi State that they can use to keep getting paid during the semester to work some and during the summers again if they choose to keep working in a lab at Mississippi State,” King said.
EMCC math and science Scooba Campus Division Chair Jairus Johnson said several EMCC students had expressed interest at information sessions on the Scooba and Golden Triangle campuses. He also emphasized the degree of opportunity afforded to students through the program.
“One of the things provided by the partnership is it’s going to provide research opportunities to our community college students,” Johnson said. “As you know, community colleges don’t conduct research in this area, so that’s a great opportunity to have hands-on research experience.”
Johnson said the opportunity was also unique in being only available to EMCC students.
“When I was in college, I didn’t have any kind of research experience at the university I attended, so this opportunity would have been great back then to put on my resume,” Johnson said. “We’re only in competition for this grant with ourselves. No other community college will be able to send students to MSU to do the research.”
For more information, EMCC students can reach King at jonas.king@msstate.edu and Johnson at jjohnson@eastms.edu.