# Cornell program to increase faculty diversity and promote research excellence

> **NIH NIH R25** · CORNELL UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $244,301

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Diversity increases creativity in problem solving endeavors like biomedical research. Diversity of educators also
improves the success of students from underrepresented groups. Thus, increasing the recruitment and retention
of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty will directly increase diversity of the biomedical workforce, and
increase the likelihood that current minority undergraduates, and graduate students, enter the US biomedical
workforce. Cornell has successfully implemented programs that have increased diversity of undergraduate and
graduate students, and that have increased representation of women in the biomedical research faculty. We now
propose programs that will increase representation of minority faculty with research programs aligned with the
NIAID mission. The overall goals of this program are to: 1) increase the diversity of our faculty, 2) build supportive
interactions among participants, 3) provide mentoring and professional development opportunities to early career
faculty (ECF) so they reach full potential as scholars, teachers, and contributors to their department, college and
the university, and 4) create a culture of acceptance in inclusiveness to increase retention of URM at Cornell.
We will reach these goals with four specific aims. Aim 1. Provide a grant-writing course and skills development
workshops to support the participant’s academic success. Aim 2. Create a visiting scholar grant to enhance the
participant’s NIAID-related scholarship. Aim 3. Develop multiple forms of mentoring, and mentor training, to
increase the likelihood of the participant’s long-term success in biomedical research. Aim 4. Increase the diversity
of faculty applicant pools and percentage of URM faculty hired. Overall, the programs outlined in this proposal
will directly increase diversity of the biomedical research workforce at Cornell University, and will have more
broad effects indirectly by creating a group of successful URM faculty who can inspire and train the next
generation of increasingly diverse undergraduate and graduate students.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9973146
- **Project number:** 5R25AI140481-03
- **Recipient organization:** CORNELL UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Hector Aguilar-Carreno
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $244,301
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9973146

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9973146, Cornell program to increase faculty diversity and promote research excellence (5R25AI140481-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-29 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9973146. Licensed CC0.

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