Broader Impacts Grant Funding
Each year, the our office assists Northwestern faculty in designing outreach strategies and broader impacts for grant proposals. Being situated in Evanston Township High School (ETHS), the partnership coordinator has a comprehensive understanding of the vision, goals, challenges and existing resources of ETHS. Therefore the outreach proposals in these grants are designed with faculty and high school partners to be uniquely tailored and mutually beneficial.
In 2015, Biomedical Engineering Professor Evan Scott was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Early CAREER Grant. The Broader Impacts work in the grant supports programs to encourage high school girls and students of color in engineering career pathways including mentorship, guest speakers for classroom visits and STEM career pathway programs for parents. In the summer of 2018, Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Guiseppe Buscarnera used his Broader Impacts funds to arrange guest speakers in ETHS classes. Buscarnera also hosted ETHS and other Chicago area Geoscience teachers to Northwestern University for a three day summer Professional Development workshop on Civil Engineering, Global Climate Change, and Geophysics. Associate Professor Yoram Lithwick utilized his Broader Impacts funding to host an Exoplanet Symposium for ETHS, Niles, and CPS high school students at Northwestern. Students learned from hands-on workshops and lectures about the discovery of exoplanets and other astrophysics topics. Assistant Professor Wen Fai Fong was awarded funding for her research that included assisting ETHS Astrophysics students in making a series of short video clips on gravitational waves to be utilized in the school Planetarium.