We wanted to make sure that you saw the recently published Science article entitled, “Michigan’s Surprising Path to Diversity: Black Graduate Students Find a Nurturing Culture in Its Applied Physics Program”. This article features one of k-Space’s co-founders, Roy Clarke, and explains how shortly after joining the University of Michigan (UM) Physics faculty, he noticed that the physics program followed a master-apprentice model, which provided few opportunities for students to branch out. To address this, he created a new graduate program in applied physics at UM. This program takes a more collaborative and interdisciplinary approach and focuses on supporting the students and ensuring that they succeed. This style of learning attracted many students of color, and by 2017, approximately 10% of the Black students in the US who graduated with a Ph.D. in physics were graduates of this program. The program also has impressive student body diversity statistics for other minority races and females. You can read the entire article on Science.org.
