An Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is an organizational construct, originally developed in technology companies, with dedicated staff who coordinate and support open source activity. When adapted to a university, an OSPO can offer: 1) training and individualized support for faculty, students, and staff who want to grow local software efforts into healthy open source projects, 2) advice on how best to contribute to existing projects, 3) documentation of the value of open source work and 4) facilitation of relationships with other organizational units like technology transfer, research computing, or the library. This grant supports the establishment of an OSPO at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The planned OSPO will be hosted by Georgia Tech’s Scientific Software Engineering Center (SSEC) with strong collaboration from GT’s Partnership for an Advanced Computing Environment (PACE) and the University Library. The Georgia Tech OSPO will be co-led by Jeffrey Young, Senior Research Scientist in the School of Computer Science and Fang Liu, Senior Research Scientist at PACE. Grant funds will support a host of activities, including the development of community driven community guidelines for open source software projects on campus, support for at least 30 faculty-driven open source software projects, workshops and a series of training events targeting both GT students and faculty, and two undergraduate internship programs, one over the summer and another during the school year. Additional grant funds will support outreach activities outside the GT campus, with a particular focus on faculty and students at HBCUs and Minority Serving Institution in the Atlanta area.

An Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is an organizational construct, originally developed in technology companies, with dedicated staff who coordinate and support open source activity. When adapted to a university, an OSPO can offer: 1) training and individualized support for faculty, students, and staff who want to grow local software efforts into healthy open source projects, 2) advice on how best to contribute to existing projects, 3) documentation of the value of open source work and 4) facilitation of relationships with other organizational units like technology transfer, research computing, or the library. This grant funds the establishment of an OSPO at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The new OSPO will be housed in the University’s Data Science Institute (DSI) and be led by DSI Director Kyle Cranmer, a physicist with a passion for nurturing an open source ethos on the UW campus and beyond. At the center of the University of Wisconsin’s planned OSPO is a ‘maturity model’ that aims to move individuals from awareness and use of open source to active community contribution and finally into leadership of community projects. This model will guide an approach to supporting faculty and students into deeper engagement with open source software practices. Grant funds will support a survey of current practice on campus, the development of a series of trainings, and an expansion of UW’s existing Open Source Internship program (which onboards undergraduates into research experiences as contributors to faculty software projects) that will include a partnership with Madison College. Funds will also support events aimed at engaging UW—Madison Extension, the Office of Business Engagement, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Madison area. Other grant funds will enable the hiring of an OSPO Program Manager, provide partial administrative and communications support, and provide access to a data science or research software engineer for technical consulting.

This grant provides three years of continued support for the Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network (SSMN), a robust network for alumni of the Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. and UCEM programs (“Sloan Scholars”).  The SSMN serves many important aims. First and foremost, it provides an opportunity for the Sloan Foundation to continue to invest in Sloan Scholars after they have completed graduate study and are transitioning into professional life, thus increasing the likelihood that scholars will stay in STEM careers. Second, the network fosters community amongst scholars, understanding that community connections are especially important to those underrepresented in STEM. Third, the SSMN nurtures mentoring connections between alumni and current scholars—a connection both groups have been eager to engage in. Grants funds will support a strategic mix of workshops, grants, and networking opportunities during the grant period, including an Academic Job Market, a New Faculty Bootcamp, and an awards program that provides more research seed funding, mentoring grants, and travel awards to scholars. Additional activities supported under this grant include an expansion of target populations to include alumni beyond those in academe; strengthened efforts to connect current scholars and alumni; greater coordination and an initiative to expand network activities to include alumni of the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership. All enhancements and adjustments to network activities are informed by feedback received from alumni, current scholars, and the SSMN advisory committee.

This grant supports efforts by the Council of Graduate Schools to provide services to the higher education community in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students For Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, two cases challenging the constitutionality of the use of race as one factor in college and university admissions decisions.  Grant funding will allow CGS to understand the ways in which the SCOTUS decisions are impacting graduate admissions and broader graduate education DEI efforts; to educate the graduate community about strategies for pursuing equity in the post-decision environment; and to build consensus about legally sound admissions practices for graduate education across key communities.

Founded by Mary Murphy, Endowed Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, the Equity Accelerator (EA) is a focused research organization that harnesses research, practice, and policy to create more equitable learning and working environments, from college to careers.  This grant supports efforts by EA to enhance and improve its Classroom Practices Library (CPL), a collection of evidence-based resources created to help educators craft learning environments that promote a sense of belonging and support learning among students. Grants funds will support the development of an interactive online course on how to create inclusive, welcoming educational environments.  Composed of a series of modules and informed both by existing CPL resources and by extensive user feedback, the course will cover a series of important topics, including student-centered course policies, how to take a growth mindset approach, and how to create a classroom environment where students feel welcome and safe in their identities.  Other grant funds will support technology platform development; iterative, feedback-based improvement of the new course; and outreach and dissemination activities.

This grant funds an awards program by Film Independent (FIND), producer of the Independent Spirit Awards, that aims to help produce and distribute feature films with scientific or technological themes, or those that feature scientists, engineers, technologists, inventors, or mathematicians as major characters. FIND makes several grants each year to achieve these aims: one producer a year is selected to develop a science-themed script in FIND’s Producing Lab with a $30,000 Producer’s grant and a reception and promotion around this project (the Lab accepts ten producers per year); one producer or producing team is selected per year for the Sloan Fast Track Fellowship with a $20,000 cash grant and invitation to the Fast Track film financing market (up to ten projects per year are selected); one outstanding episodic television writer is selected each year for a $20,000 grant to develop a science-themed series in FIND’s Episodic Lab; and one exceptional science-themed film is awarded a distribution grant of $50,000 to incentivize buyers to acquire an eligible film for distribution. In addition, FIND will host both an annual Sloan Salon with a science theme and 100 attendees and an annual Fellows Party with about 500 attendees to celebrate the growing film pipeline and link the Foundation to the wider filmmaking community.