Bridge to Faculty program welcomes new cohort and celebrates achievements
The Bridge to Faculty (B2F) program is welcoming nine new scholars for their fifth cohort starting in fall 2024. B2F—a recruitment program administered out of the UIC Office of Diversity, Equity and Engagement (ODEE)—is designed to engage underrepresented postdoctoral scholars with the goal of a direct transition to a tenure-track junior faculty position after two years. It aims to attract and retain promising scholars to UIC as well as diversify the faculty, with particular emphasis on departments with low or no presence of faculty who are underrepresented in their field.
The nine new 2024 scholars are:
- Art History: Riad Kherdeen
- Biomedical Engineering (BME): Lucinda Williamson and a second scholar to be announced
- Civil, Materials and Environmental Engineering (CME): Joshua Adkins
- Communication: Jeehyun (Jenny) Lee
- Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Epi-Bio): Victor Florez-Garcia
- Human Development Nursing Science (HDNS): Michelle Villegas-Downs
- Political Science: Kumar Ramanathan
- University Library: Amina Malik
There have been 49 total B2F scholars since the program started in 2020, with 31 having already transitioned to UIC faculty positions. These scholars have come from 11 colleges and schools and 43 departments across campus. $3.5 million in sponsored funding has been awarded to B2F scholar PIs and there have been 156 journal articles, 3 books and 3 book chapters published by B2F scholars during their program thus far.
Recently, Gabriela Nunez-Mir, PhD, assistant professor of biological sciences at UIC and member of the 2021 B2F cohort, was awarded a 2024 Walder Foundation’s Biota award. This 3-year, $300,000 award is given to early-career researchers who seek to restore, protect and conserve biodiversity in the Chicago region and around the world. Nunez-Mir will use it towards her research on invasive plants.
Marcus Michelen, PhD, assistant professor of mathematics, statistics and computer science at UIC and member of the inaugural 2020 B2F cohort, received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for his groundbreaking work in “Analytic and High-dimensional Methods in Probability” which is funded for 2024-2029. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.
Additionally, in spring 2024, UIC was chosen as one of 10 academic institutions to receive the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutional Excellence in DEIA Prize award, which includes $100,000 and an invitation to a virtual symposium this past June to present interventions that produced measurable impact in the STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math & Medicine) fields. This award highlighted UIC programs such as B2F that have used data, research and comprehensive action to improve student success in scientific disciplines and faculty diversity across all fields.
“B2F is transformative because we lead with our three core values—we are a scholar-centered, ecologically oriented and an accountability focused program—and we leverage our values in every decision that we make as an administrative team,” stated Mario Lucero, MA, director of inclusion initiatives in the ODEE and B2F staff member. “This program is changing UIC one department at a time.”