This grant supports a budding partnership between Tuskegee University (a Historically Black University) and Columbia University that seeks to create sustainable pathways to graduate education for underrepresented minority students by expanding existing programs at Columbia to Tuskegee students. Specifically, grant funds allow the partnership to create a foundation for a biomedical engineering program at Tuskegee, drawing on the expertise of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Columbia; create a seed grants program for research collaborations between faculty at Tuskegee and Columbia, including funding a co-advised Master’s student at Tuskegee and encouraging that student to apply to a Ph.D. program at Columbia; create a new position for a Tuskegee alumnus in Columbia’s Bridge-to-the-Ph.D. program; augment and codify engineering design challenges involving Tuskegee and Columbia undergraduates; and dedicate four positions in the Amazon-Columbia Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program for Tuskegee students, who will also conduct co-advised research during the academic year at Tuskegee.