Bridge to the Faculty Celebrates Successful Spring 2022 Semester
The Bridge to the Faculty (B2F) program is marking the completion of its first cohort cycle this spring, along with several awards and honors for its members.
All 10 of the scholars in the inaugural B2F 2020 cohort will be finishing their time in the program this May and transitioning to faculty positions at UIC.
Among them is Stephanie Torres, an Educational Psychology B2F scholar, who was recently awarded a UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) Pilot Grant, entitled, “Pilot Testing of a Structural Racism Intervention for Latinx Immigrant Families: Blending of Implementation Science and Community-Engaged Research”. The grant is for $30,000 and will run from January 2022 through January 2023.
The 2021 B2F cohort also received notable distinctions this semester. History B2F scholar, Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez, won the 2022 Bancroft Dissertation Award from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. The award is given annually to an outstanding previously defended Columbia dissertation in American history, diplomacy, or international affairs and includes a publication subvention.
According to the award website, criteria for the award judging includes the following: “The first consideration should be the importance and originality of its subject as judged by scholarly standards […] Dissertations may be considered to have a further degree of excellence if they are judged to be of interest not only to an unusual number of scholars but also to the general educated public.”
Padilla-Rodríguez was recognized by the Bancroft Awards Committee as a “superb exemplar of PhD scholarship” for her work that focuses on the socio-legal histories of child migration.
Additionally, Earth and Environmental Sciences B2F scholar and 2021 cohort member, Monique Holt, co-authored an essay on diversity in STEM entitled “Community voices: Achieving real diversity in STEM requires the ability to transform institutions” that was published in the March 2022 edition of Nature Communications. Holt is an observational seismologist who uses natural and anthropogenic seismic sources to listen to the Earth. She is also invested in researching how to dismantle systemic barriers to diversity, equity, justice, and inclusion in STEM, a topic which she explored in this publication.
B2F is a recruitment program administered by the Office of Diversity, Equity & Engagement that offers scholars from historically underrepresented backgrounds in academia a two-year intensive training and mentoring program with the possibility to transition to tenure-track junior faculty positions.
Please look for ongoing highlights of B2F awards and honors which will continue to be featured in upcoming newsletters.