Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
Historically Black Fayetteville State University in North Carolina received a six-year, $10,657,950 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The funds provided will empower the university to strengthen and expand qualified master’s degree programs in key STEM fields, where African American and low-income students are underrepresented. The grant is under the direction of Kimberly Smith-Burton, a professor of mathematics education at the university.
The Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University in Detroit, along with the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging to extend funding for the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research.
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the historically Black educational institution in Greensboro, was granted $5.8 million by the National Institutes of Health to create a genomics educational hub that will provide new educational and research opportunities for undergraduate and master’s students who are historically underrepresented in biomedical sciences. The program will be led by Joseph L. Graves Jr., the MacKenzie Scott Endowed Professor of Biology in the College of Science and Technology and Kristen Rhinehardt, an assistant professor in computational and data science engineering in the College of Engineering.
Historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The specific aims of this project are multifaceted and include such objectives as developing a new AI-based model for the automatic discovery of malwares through static analysis, creating a new black-box AI-based model for the automatic discovery of malware strains through dynamic analysis, training undergraduate students in cybersecurity through undergraduate research projects, and improving public cybersecurity awareness through community workshops and outreach events.
