Conference Session

Track 2: Technical Session 5: From Barriers to Bridges: The GEES Program's Impact on Low-Income Master's Students' Success and Professional Development

Collection

2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Authors

Ximing Li, University of Pittsburgh; Sylvanus N. Wosu, University of Pittsburgh; Keith Trahan, University of Pittsburgh; Tagbo Herman Roland Niepa, Carnegie Mellon University

Tagged Topics

2025 CoNECD Paper Submissions, Diversity

and their career progression in STEM fields [1]-[2].In order to bridge these gaps, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships inScience, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program (S-STEM) has fundedprograms aimed at supporting students through scholarships, mentorship, and careerdevelopment. The Graduate Engineering Education Scholarship (GEES) of the University ofPittsburgh is one of the success cases of the NSF S-STEM (Track 2) initiative. The GEESprogram, launched 2019 by the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering(SSoE), is an attempt to address the financial issues that low-income students face. There aretwo primary objectives: (1) to increase access to Master of Science (MS) degrees

Conference Session

Track 6: Technical Session 4: WIP: investigate recruitment strategies used by engineering bridge and success programs to recruit underserved students

Collection

2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Authors

Xinyu Zhang, Purdue University; Lynette Michaluk, West Virginia University; N’Diya Harris, Wright State University; Ansley Lynn Shamblin, West Virginia University

Tagged Topics

2025 CoNECD Paper Submissions, Diversity

disabled students.To broaden participation and increase diversity in engineering and computing majors in 4-yearuniversities and colleges, bridge and success programs (also called intervention programs in someliterature) such as summer bridge, engineering scholar, and bootcamp have been used to supportstudents’ college transition and retention [1-8]. Some were initially created with federal fundingsupport from U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Engineering,Technology, and Mathematics Program (S-STEM) and Louis Stokes Alliances for MinorityParticipation Program (LSAMP) [9] and institutionalized later. Both S-STEM Scholars programand LSAMP Scholars program not only provide financial support to student participants but