Miramar College, pending SDCCD board approval, has received a $469,540 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. government’s independent science agency.
The three-year grant will fund the college’s Building Pathways from High School to College for Increased Biotechnology Career Readiness which will support San Diego Miramar College training future Biotechnology technicians for the workforce.
“This is a terrific accomplishment for our STEM and science programs,” said Dr. Wes Lundburg, president of San Diego Miramar College. “It is our long-term strategic vision to become the San Diego region’s ‘go to’ institution for training the next generation of skilled workforce professionals in the field of Biotechnology. These funds will help build the foundation.”
To address the urgent need for skilled biotechnology technicians, the goal of the project is to create a direct pathway to Miramar College for biotechnology related technical training for students, according to Rebecca Bowers-Gentry and Shawn Hurley. As principal investigators, Bowers-Gentry and Hurley will lead the new initiative with Heather Holmes, Kim Teston-Fierro and Tracey Milani in partnership with our industry and educational partners to provide opportunities for high school students to seamlessly guide students from high school to a Certificate of Achievement in Biotech at San Diego Miramar College to skilled technician careers in the biotechnology industry.
Rebecca Bowers-Gentry, Ph.D., Shawn Hurley, Ph.D., Heather Holmes and Dean Linda Woods, Ph.D. began preparing the grant proposal in 2023 with mentoring and technical support from Mentor-Connect, which provides mentoring and technical resources to help two-year college faculty write competitive grant proposals. Mentor-Connect is an ATE project led by Florence-Darlington Technical College in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges.
Mentor-Connect was instrumental in Miramar College obtaining this grant. They provided mentorship at two conferences in addition to substantial hours of direct support to the grant group to ensure our grant proposal was successful.
The ATE program focuses on the education of technicians who work in high-tech fields that drive the nation’s economy. Because two-year community and technical colleges are the leading sources of technician education in the United States, faculty from these higher education institutions have had leadership roles in most ATE projects since the program began in 1993.
This project is pending SDCCD board approval. For more information, please email Rebecca Bowers-Gentry, Professor of Biology/Chemistry at rbowersg@sdccd.edu or Shawn Hurley Professor of Biology at shurley@sdccd.edu.
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