A New, Diverse Workforce
Recently launched programs — one in quantitative biology and one in quantum information science — will prepare a new, diverse workforce in highly technical fields that struggle to find enough talent.
FUTURE-MINDS-QB
The Fisk-UIUC Training of Under-Represented Minds in Data Science and Quantitative Biology (FUTURE-MINDS-QB) is supported by a five-year T-32 training grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. It will provide training, a nurturing environment, and academic and professional mentorship for students from underrepresented ethnic, racial, and gender groups in quantitative biology and biomedical data sciences. Quantitative biology encompasses bioinformatics, computational biology, genomic biology, and biophysics.
The Fisk-UIUC Training of Under-Represented Minds in Data Science and Quantitative Biology (FUTURE-MINDS-QB) is supported by a five-year T-32 training grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. It will provide training, a nurturing environment, and academic and professional mentorship for students from underrepresented ethnic, racial, and gender groups in quantitative biology and biomedical data sciences. Quantitative biology encompasses bioinformatics, computational biology, genomic biology, and biophysics.
“The more mathematical and computational skills a discipline requires, the lower the enrollment of students from underrepresented groups — there is plenty of historical data that reflects this disparity of access to the fields of biomedical data science and quantitative biology. Our FUTURE-MINDS-QB program will help by equalizing access to high-level, rigorous training for participants and by streamlining the PhD application process here at UIUC through our partnership with Fisk University.”
The FUTURE-MINDS-QB program offers two tracks from a master’s degree program at Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, to a doctoral degree program at UIUC in a field relevant to quantitative biology. One track includes a traditional two-year master’s program. The program additionally establishes a new 4+1 master’s track at Fisk — students enrolled in this track will complete relevant master’s courses during their senior year to enable finishing a master’s program in just one year. The 4+1 track will require applicants to have participated in a formal summer program of preparatory research and workshops at UIUC as undergraduates enrolled at Fisk.
In either FUTURE-MINDS-QB track, participants will receive rigorous training in the core computational and mathematical skills required to succeed in big-data research fields. Built into the program at all levels are academic and professional development and mentoring — both at Fisk and at UIUC. FUTURE-MINDS-QB participants enrolled in Fisk master’s programs in biology, data science, chemistry, or physics will get the chance to strengthen their doctoral-program prerequisites and to reinforce their understanding of core scientific concepts, in preparation for interdisciplinary research integrating computation, theory, physical sciences, and biology. Faculty mentors at Fisk come from the Departments of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, and Physics.
At UIUC, FUTURE-MINDS-QB involves faculty from the Departments of Bioengineering, Chemistry, Computer Science, Physics, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Cell & Developmental Biology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Molecular & Integrative Physiology, and Crop Sciences.
Professor Lei Qian, of Fisk’s Department of Computer Science, is a co-PI on FUTURE-MINDS-QB. Qian points to the strong ties and shared goals among faculty at the two universities, saying he expects the new bridge program will help to decrease the gap in historically marginalized groups working in biological data science.
“In the past six years, Fisk and UIUC built a strong relationship through the National Institutes of Health’s Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program,” Qian said. “The FUTURE-MINDS-QB program will reinforce this coalition and establish a pipeline for training underrepresented graduate students in quantitative life sciences and physics, ultimately increasing the diversity of doctoral researchers in these areas. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues at UIUC and Fisk to achieve these goals.”
Fisk Life and Physical Sciences Professor Lee Limbird, who was dean of the Fisk School of Natural Science, Mathematics, and Business, is also a co-PI on the grant. Limbird credits her colleagues at Fisk with having helped to build this new bridge for Fisk students.
“Doctors Qian, Nelms, Ramanathan, and Damo mentored students collaborating with UIUC in an NIH-funded Big Data to Knowledge research training project, which laid the foundation for this exciting master’s-to-PhD bridge program in quantitative biology,” she noted. “As always, I am proud to enjoy Fisk's community of faculty and student colleagues who are chipping away at a better future tense!”
For Song, who has for many years worked on diversity-related undergraduate-training programs in biological big-data science, the new bridge program is the realization of a long-held goal to extend these efforts to the graduate level. He points out that this new effort and the prior Fisk-UIUC collaborative programs have been and will continue to be successful, only because they receive broad support from administrators, research centers, and faculty on both campuses. In fact, when funding ran out for the BD2K undergraduate training program, a five-year extension was funded by the UIUC Office of the Chancellor and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation.
“We have extensive support from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, which is heavily involved in the early stage of training undergraduates. The Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Access (IDEA Institute) has agreed to continue supporting our Fisk-UIUC collaborative programs by teaching students effective time management and other professional skillsets,” Song said.
“And of course, none of this would be possible without the level of trust we have built between Fisk University and UIUC, which provides a fundamental foundation for building an outstanding program. Our Fisk faculty collaborators have been instrumental in developing this strong rapport and the new training program.”
QuSTEAM
Quantum information science has the potential to enable breakthroughs and have far-reaching economic and societal impact, but there’s a missing link: the lack of a diverse, quantum-ready workforce.
A multi-institutional team of researchers and educators, including experts from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is addressing that shortage — taking a next step toward building transformative, modular quantum science degrees and certification programs that will change how quantum information science is taught throughout the United States. Led by Ohio State University, QuSTEAM: Convergent Undergraduate Education in Quantum Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics is a two-year, $5 million project funded by the National Science Foundation.
“We want to target students who may not initially have a strong interest in studying STEM topics,” said Professor Eric Chitambar, an institutional lead on QuSTEAM from Grainger Engineering’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. “We want to create curriculum that increases awareness of quantum science and what it can do, as well as provide a pathway for entering the quantum workforce. More broadly, we want to create literacy around this topic, especially among those who may eventually go into the arts and humanities.”
Quantum computers could eventually tackle certain problems that today are difficult or impossible to solve, even for the most powerful high-performance computers. To fulfill that promise, a quantum-smart workforce will be needed to make advances in computing, sensing, and networking.
“We have leaders in quantum information and STEM education, and both of these groups independently do good work building undergraduate curriculum, but they actually work together surprisingly rarely,” said QuSTEAM lead investigator Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, professor in the Department of Physics at Ohio State. “We are talking to people in industry and academia about what aspects of quantum information are most critical, what skills are needed, what workforce training looks like today, and what they expect it to look like a couple years from now.”
QuSTEAM brings together scientists and educators from more than 20 universities, national laboratories, community colleges, and historically Black colleges and universities. The initiative also has about 15 industrial partners, including GE Research, Honda, and JPMorgan Chase. It collaborates with leading national research centers to help provide a holistic portrait of future workforce needs.
The group is also collaborating with the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center to recruit faculty from its network of more than 20 partner colleges and universities, as well as Argonne National Laboratory. In all, the QuSTEAM team is composed of 66 faculty who have expertise in quantum information science and engineering, creative arts and social sciences, and education research.
Part of the difficulty in training such a workforce is the challenge of attracting students at the right time and in all the right places, says Emily Edwards, executive director of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST).
“Most curriculum is aimed at advanced physics or computing undergraduate or graduate students, when in reality, we need to capture their interest and imagination when they are much younger,” said Edwards, whose NSF-funded program Q2Work will collaborate with QuSTEAM on increasing quantum awareness. “Students from all institutions need access to quantum courses, and QuSTEAM has program partnerships and a cross-disciplinary approach that will help make that happen.”
The team will build curricula consisting of in-person, online, and hybrid courses for the envisioned degree and certification programs — including pilot versions of the critical classes and modules that will be offered at the respective universities while the team continues to assess evolving workforce needs. QuSTEAM plans to offer its introductory class in Spring 2022, and a full slate of core classes for a minor by Fall 2022 or Spring 2023.