National Science Foundation Awards TAMIU Grant

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $49,647 to Texas A&M International University to fund a team of TAMIU graduate students to conduct a science policy survey and innovation that aims to study the relationships between East Asian (Japan, Singapore and Taiwan) graduate students and their mentors and how these relationships influence scientific discovery, innovation and productivity.

The Project team consists of three TAMIU faculty members—Dr. Marcus Antonius Ynalvez as principal investigator and Dr. John C. Kilburn and Dr. Ruby Ynalvez, co-principal investigators—and Dr. Noriko Hara, associate professor of information science at Indiana University, also co-principal investigator.

Last year, the NSF awarded a grant of $335,709 for the “MOD – Transmission of Tacit Skills in East Asian Graduate Science Programs.”

“This latest grant will help fund travel for a team of TAMIU graduate students, three M.A. sociology students and one M.S. biology student, to conduct quantitative and qualitative science policy and innovation research in Singapore in Summer 2010,” said Dr. Marcus Antonius Ynalvez, assistant professor of sociology.

The team of students will be under the director supervision of Drs. Marcus Ynalvez and Ruby Ynalvez.

The grant will also make possible for the three sociology graduate students and the biology graduate student to present their research topics, experiences and findings at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society in Jacksonville, Fla., and at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Washington D.C., respectively.

“These hands-on activities and close interaction with project members will lead graduate students to acquire tacit skills that are necessary and critical to becoming competent and productive junior investigators who will later on advance knowledge in science, technology and innovation studies,” explained Dr. Marcus Ynalvez.

“This experience will help these graduate students identify positive role-models, think of professional career trajectories, meet future doctoral mentors, build social and professional networks and enhance prospects for research internships and collaboration. By broadening participation of students from historically under represented populations in science, technology, and innovation studies, this endeavor will contribute to the emergence of a racially diverse U.S. scientific manpower critical to the economic and technological competitiveness of the U.S. in the twenty-first century,” continued Ynalvez.

For more information, contact Dr. Marcus Ynalvez at mynalvez@tamiu.edu or 326.2621 or visit office in Dr. F. M. Canseco Hall, room 313F.

University office hours are 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Friday.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at prmis@tamiu.edu