U-RISE grant brings new opportunity to CSUB

Sep. 5—Isabel Sumaya wishes a program like U-RISE had been an option when she was an undergraduate student at Cal State Bakersfield.

As a first-generation college student, the Arvin High alum and behavioral neuroscientist who now teaches at CSUB knows she is somewhat of a "unicorn" in her field, as there aren't many in her demographic leading research labs with a Ph.D.

And the idea behind the National Institutes of Health's $1.3 million multiyear grant to establish an Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement, or U-RISE, is to change that.

"We know that in order to ... to tackle the nation's health care system, then we need new methodologies and novel strategies that confront diseases that yet to have a defined etiology or treatment," Sumaya said. "We need to take an integrative and collaborative approach to be able to tackle these issues coming up. So we need multidisciplinary, multiskilled, diverse teams of young scientists. And that's what this grant does."

The university is now looking for five students — three have already enrolled, for a total of eight — who will be a part of the first cohort for the program that pays students $14,000 a year to conduct lab research. They'll also have about half their tuition paid for and funds for summer research experience at other universities.

"The U-RISE program is another way in which CSUB is efforting in an intentional, purposeful way to serve the students who are here at the university," said James Rodriguez, dean of CSUB's School of Social Sciences and Education, "and simultaneously to serve the greater good, including the communities of the region and in doing so, meeting the diverse needs of the communities of the region."

New opportunities

Nora Alammari, one of the three students who have already qualified for the grant's first cohort, said her interest in the program started with an email to Amy Gancarz-Kausch, a behavioral neuroscientist at CSUB whose lab focuses on behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms that underlie vulnerability to drug addiction.

Alammari had one year left when she reached out, and while she really wanted the opportunity to learn more about biological psychology, there weren't a lot of CSUB courses on the subject. However, Gancarz-Kausch's lab lets students get valuable hands-on experience.

At a time when students are supposed to be figuring out their respective paths, Alammari said the guidance she received, even though it was largely through Zoom, was invaluable.

"She has helped me a lot in figuring out what I want to do because as an undergrad student, it's kind of difficult to choose a particular field of study that you want to be in for the rest of your life," Alammari said.

It helped firm up a couple of goals for Alammari, who decided she wants to earn a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience. Born and raised in Bakersfield, Alammari knew she would have to leave the area in order to complete a Ph.D. program, as CSUB's only doctoral degrees are in education.

"I realized that it is in my best interest because I will get lots of mentorship, lots of opportunities that I can't access anywhere. I was very fortunate to be offered the application, and when I was accepted, I was beyond excited," she said.

How it works

The idea behind the program is to create ways for students to be competitive in their applications for Ph.D. programs at research institutions, Sumaya said, with a three-pronged approach: "We have research training. We have academic preparation and the third is professional and personal development."

Sumaya is particularly excited about one of the courses that she thinks will be especially helpful, "From CSUB to Ph.D." The whole idea of the class is to provide weekly check-ins and guidance for students, as well as lessons on a broad variety of topics from the ethics of bioscience to how to craft a "statement of purpose" for a Ph.D. application.

For Andres Orea, another first-generation college student, the courses and the support have all been crucial in helping him realize his educational goals, he said.

"I really liked this program because it gives students who are underrepresented an opportunity to do research, especially at CSUB, which is not a big research university," Orea said. "I mean, a lot of students don't even realize they have a chance to do research, what it means and how it affects everyone when people do research. You get exposed to this, and that really helps students sometimes decide what they want to do with their career."

While Orea was excited about the mentorship and chance to attend conferences for networking and professional opportunities, he knows U-RISE will provide immediate help, as well as guidance.

"It really helps because I can focus on, instead of working in like a minimum-wage job," Orea said, "I can be doing research which helps with paying bills, right, but it also helps you put something on your resume that will look more impressive for graduate schools — and it really helps expose you to the fact that we were able to actually go to graduate school and have this opportunity."

Community impact

While the initial U-RISE cohorts are small, Sumaya sees the program as having pretty significant potential for brightening Bakersfield's future for lots of students.

"Once we get (the CSUB to Ph.D.) class up and running, we're going to open it up ... so (other students) can reap the benefits of that knowledge that will help them prepare them for entrance into Ph.D. programs," Sumaya said.

That's significant, because less than 1 percent of the population has a Ph.D., Sumaya said, and it can be especially difficult to earn one in an area as socioeconomically challenged as Bakersfield.

Brandon Krieg, the third member of the U-RISE cohort, describes his Ph.D. path as somewhat nontraditional as a 26-year-old community college transfer student. He acknowledged difficulties he had coming out of high school with "all the layers," that go into being successful in college, not just the academic portion, but the paperwork, the time management and the accountability.

While he's much more focused now, he described the mentorship portion of the program as invaluable.

"You know, this aspiration is fairly new to me, still, and I think it has become inspired because of acceptance into this program. So I'm still kind of discovering what I want to study in the future," he said, adding that science has always been an interest.

One of the things he's recently learned about, and looks forward to studying at CSUB's rat lab, is opponent process theory, which outlines the affective and physiological response your body has to stimuli, which is used in drug research. One of the experiments currently being worked on, for example, is giving the rats low- and high-fat diets to see how they react differently to cognitive tests.

For Alammari, the chance to study in a lab setting is not only a great chance to learn, it's also bolstered her interest in potentially coming back and teaching at CSUB.

"I do want to conduct a lot of my research (in neuroscience), but what I've seen from ... a lot of the faculty here, which I consider my mentors, is they are able to teach through being professors and also do their research. So that's given me hope," Alammari said, adding that teaching is something she's thought about since she was a kid. "I had very influential educators growing up who supported me to get to where I am today, so that's like a big reason why I want to go into teaching as well."