R&D Council announces 6th class of Governor’s STEM Scholars
The Research & Development Council of New Jersey is presenting the 2019-2020 class of the Governor’s STEM Scholars.
The GSS Advisory Board selected 95 of New Jersey’s best and brightest STEM students to join the sixth Governor’s STEM Scholars class. The scholars come from 20 counties in New Jersey.
The Governor’s STEM Scholars program is a public-private partnership among the R&D Council of New Jersey, the Governor’s Office, the New Jersey Department of Education, the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, and Fortune 500 companies. It is designed to immerse the top STEM talent in grades 10 through the doctoral level in New Jersey’s vast STEM economy and bolster the state’s education and career pipeline.
“The research component of the program is designed so that the undergraduate and graduate students gain experience mentoring the high school students, in addition to being mentored themselves,” Governor’s STEM Scholars Director Rebecca Lubot said. She notes that GSS places a special emphasis on encouraging women in STEM.
“These students are the future innovators in STEM,” Larry O’Connell, chair of the R&D Council, said. “By joining this program, these scholars are getting an introduction to New Jersey’s robust STEM economy. There isn’t another program like it in the country.”
The students chosen to be a part of GSS have demonstrated exceptional performance and leadership in STEM both in their schools and in their communities across New Jersey. They were selected by an eight-member advisory board that has decades of collective experience with STEM in government, academia and industry.
The program’s first event of the year will be at Rutgers University on Sept. 28. The topic is STEM in Government, and the scholars will learn from professionals working in cybersecurity, national security and environmental protection. They will be introduced to the concept of “STEM citizenship;” visit campus research laboratories such as the Astronomy and Physics Laboratories, the Waksman Institute of Microbiology and the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience; and begin working on research projects in a team setting.