This grant supports efforts by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to improve the ways colleges and universities collect data on the career pathways and outcomes of graduate students in doctoral programs. CGS will spearhead the development and dissemination of an instrument to be used by departments at colleges and universities to track the careers of those that graduate from their doctoral programs. In addition, it will provide universities with a framework for administering the surveys and analyzing responses. Unlike the data collected in the Survey of Doctorate Recipients and the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which are aggregated nationally, the CGS effort would be focused on data aggregated at the departmental and institutional levels and would focus on improving individual graduate programs; enhance institutional services to graduate students; inform prospective and current graduate students about careers associated with particular degree programs; and increase the awareness of policymakers, funders, and the broader public about the professional and social contributions of doctorate holders—wherever their lives take them. Data collection is envisioned to continue for 15 years post-matriculation.

Funds from this grant continue operational support to the NBER Working Group on Household Finance, a group of researchers from economics departments, business schools, government, and industry who come together to work on questions about household balance sheets and financial decision-making. Under the leadership of Brigitte Madrian of Harvard and Steve Zeldes of Columbia, the group holds regular meetings, shares new developments in the field, identifies gaps in the research literature and promising ways to fill them, develops research projects, and convenes a well-attended biennial meeting on the economics of household finance. Additional initiatives planned for the next three years include a postdoctoral fellowship program to help engage the next generation of rising economists in the field of household finance, and a project focused on developing new methods, standards, and courses related to the use of administrative and government data.

People eligible for government benefits do not always make use of them. This goes for everything from health insurance subsidies to federal weatherization incentives to tax breaks for retirement savings to student loan forgiveness plans. For social scientists, particularly behavioral economists, the underutilization of such benefits is a vexing puzzle. Working with the Benefits Data Trust, Matt Notowidigdo of Northwestern has secured records and permissions to run a randomized controlled trial on the uptake of benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Although there have been studies of SNAP before, none have been randomized controlled trials. The study calls for over 30,000 eligible seniors to be slated by chance for one of three treatments: the control group gets nothing special; a “low touch” group will receive information about enrolling; and the “high touch” group will also receive assistance with preparing the necessary paperwork. Researchers will then analyze the collected data about who actually enrolls. Funds from this grant will support Notowidigdo and his team in executing the experiment and analyzing the results. None of Notowidigdo’s efforts aim to address potentially ideological questions about the existence or generosity of SNAP or social welfare programs in general. Rather, the aim is to generate empirical economic evidence that will help economists test different theories about what factors drive uptake of social safety net programs and how such programs can be administered effectively and efficiently.

This grant provides two years of continued support for production of National Public Radio’s Planet Money podcast. Grant funds will help produce in-depth economic content to be disseminated via the Planet Money podcast and blog and on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, NPR One, and This American Life. Additional funds will support the production of multimedia pieces to supplement and enhance the broadcast content on the web, a series of interactive “sound walks” that explore economic history, and several experiments in participatory journalism.

Funds from this grant support a three-pronged initiative by PRX, public radio’s largest distribution marketplace, to expand science-themed audio for radio broadcast and podcasting. First, PRX will continue to expand its Open Call for STEM stories, which last year generated more than 100 submissions from reporters and producers with compelling science stories to tell. Second, PRX will develop and support five new radio shows featuring women scientists and produced by women. Finally, PRX will incorporate science- and technology-themed episodes into its existing portfolio of popular programs, including The Moth Radio Hour, 99% Invisible, Theory of Everything, and Blank on Blank, which collectively reach several million listeners. With the runaway success of Serial in the past year, podcasts have hit a tipping point, and PRX is well positioned to harness this new energy and excitement. This project has the potential to engage an entirely new community of science storytellers, while advancing public understanding of science among the next generation of listeners.

Funds from this grant support two projects that aim to increase the participation of underrepresented minority (URM) students in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey collaboration. The first, the Faculty and Student Team (FAST) program creates research teams led by a faculty member and comprised of at least one URM graduate student and/or two to three advanced URM undergraduate students. Each FAST unit (faculty and students) is subsequently linked with a research team at a formal SDSS participating institution; the research team will help integrate them into the collaboration, providing a kind of double mentoring system: the SDSS institution mentors the URM FAST team, and the faculty lead mentors the participating URM students on the team. The goal is to provide these URM students with training and guidance within SDSS, anticipating that they will eventually transition to an astronomy Ph.D. program at an SDSS member university.  The second supported project is a distributed summer program that will provide research experiences for minority undergraduates. The 10-week program, to be run by New Mexico State University, will bring interested URM students from non-SDSS institutions to the home institution of SDSS researchers to facilitate one-on-one mentoring and exposure to the global SDSS collaboration. In addition to their direct SDSS mentor, students would have regular virtual check-ins with the other participants, an in-person kick-off meeting, and a culminating research meeting, likely held in conjunction with a formal SDSS collaboration meeting. Over time, the FAST and summer research programs have the potential to increase the participation of underrepresented minority doctoral students in astronomy programs nationwide.

Funds from this grant continue support to the Macro Finance Society (MFS) a group of prominent scholars in economics and finance who first came together in 2013 to advance the development of macroeconomic models that incorporate our best thinking about the interaction between the real economy and the financial sector. Grant funds will support a host of related activities over the next two years, including a series of biannual workshops and associated outreach activities, the development of a lasting repository for relevant data and code, the creation of a long-term financial sustainability plan for the society, and operational funds to offset the professional research and travel of members.

Funds from this grant support the establishment of three University Centers of Exemplary Mentoring: one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; one at the University of California, San Diego; and one at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. These centers will aim to increase the diversity of underrepresented minorities in STEM graduate education through providing fellowships, peer and faculty mentoring, professional development, and various other services to STEM graduate students from traditionally underrepresented groups. Together, the three new grants will fund $40,000 scholarships to 61 Sloan UCEM Scholars over the course of three years. In addition, the three universities will provide full packages (tuition, stipend, fees) to these 61 UCEM Scholars and to 61 UCEM Institutional Match (IM) students. Additional funds will support a host of activities at the UCEMs aimed at helping minority students succeed in their graduate studies. The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering administers the program, disburses funds to the Sloan UCEM Scholars and universities, reports on student progress and finances, and monitors and enforces policies on student eligibility, nomination, expenditure rules, and time-to-degree expectations.

Each year since 1973, the Sloan Public Service Awards have recognized six outstanding civil servants out of the hundreds of thousands of people who work for New York City government. The Fund for the City of New York manages the nomination and selection process and refers to the awards as “the Nobel Prizes of Government…, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a New York City public servant.” Nominated by their colleagues and selected by a blue-ribbon panel of distinguished New Yorkers, each of the six winners receives a $10,000 cash prize and is honored at individual celebrations at their workplaces and at a city-wide celebration presided over by the Mayor. This grant provides three years of continued support for the Sloan Public Service Awards.

The Doctoral Scholars Program (DSP) of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) sponsors the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s Institute for Teaching and Mentoring (Institute), the largest gathering of minority doctoral students in the country. The yearly institute brings minority students together to help provide young scholars with the resources they need to succeed in graduate study and in their future careers in academia. In addition, the Institute provides scholars opportunities to meet one another, share knowledge, and discuss common problems and strategies to overcome them. The gathering is an effective and efficient gathering point for all those in the Sloan Minority Ph.D. (MPHD) program, including Sloan Scholars, program directors, program administrators, and faculty, as well as staff from Sloan and its administrative partners: the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering and the Social Sciences Research Council. The number of Sloan participants has grown to over 15 percent of total attendees in the past three years, and the Institute totals now routinely exceed 1,000 per year. This grant provides four years of support to the Southern Regional Education Board to defray costs associated with hosting the Institute.