STONYBROOK, N.Y. — Dr. LaRuth McAfee, recent recipient of her doctorate in chemical engineering at MIT, was selected as the first Postdoctoral Engineering Education Researcher (PEER) by CASEE under a program supported by the National Science Foundation's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. The Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE) is the first operating center of the National Academy of Engineering. It is dedicated to achieving excellence in engineering education.

Dr. McAfee will work for 12 months with Dr. David Ferguson, chair of the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University. Dr Ferguson is extremely active in efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. He is Project Director of the NSF funded SUNY Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation(SUNY LSAMP) and SUNY AGEP and Director of the Stony Brook based National Center for Inclusive Education. The Department of Technology and Society is a member of both the CASEE Research Community and the CASEE Implementation Network.

The project involves an examination of the factors which promote success by minority graduate students and faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Specific research questions guiding the project include the following:

1. What are the key factors influencing minority students' decisions to pursue graduate study in STEM?
2. What are the key factors influencing graduate students' decisions to select the STEM professoriate as a career choice?
3. What are patterns in the experiences of minority graduate students, post-docs, and faculty in STEM disciplines -- with particular attention to experiences in engineering fields?