The CCI is leading a new research and educational collaboration, with key focus areas of equipment access and student-teaching in materials chemistry, between the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Pan American, a primarily undergraduate, Hispanic-serving institution in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. During Phase 1 of the CCI, we have received seed funding from the UT-Austin to initiate this partnership. In Phase 2 of the CCI we will continue to seek leveraged support for the partnership and will also recruit UTPA faculty as CCI research and broadening participation partners.

This effort pairs together faculty, students and facilities, on the basis of the two institutions’ complementary needs and existing capabilities, to create a meaningful and mutually beneficial partnership for discovery in materials chemistry research. As an important part of these research collaborations, CCI graduate students facilitate UTPA undergraduates’ access to advanced instrumentation housed on the UT-Austin campus. To further enhance the educational impact of this partnership, the CCI students will prepare and present lectures at UTPA on the topics of advanced instrumentation and analysis techniques in which they are experienced. In Phase 2 of the CCI, all participating researchers will convene twice annually for half-day symposia, which will be held at both campuses.

Benefits of Proposed Activity:

• UTPA students enhance their ongoing research projects by acquiring data on equipment not readily available to them (e.g., high-resolution SEM, TEM, probe miscroscopies, imaging XPS) and receiving valuable expertise and help with data interpretation from UT-Austin faculty, facility managers, and other personnel;
• UTPA students work side-by-side with CCI graduate students, thus exploring their potential for a future in graduate-level research;
• CCI graduate students are immersed in a collaborative effort that simultaneously develops both their research and communication/mentoring skills;
• CCI students realize their ability to directly and positively impact the professional development of undergraduate researchers;
• Ambitious UTPA students are recruited as future UT-Austin/CCI graduate researchers;
• Enhanced UTPA faculty retention and success (and therefore student success).