Florida A&M University and Virginia Tech partnership rooted in alumna's doctoral research and connections

In 2001, Natalie Arnett, then a student at Grambling State University, attended a summer undergraduate research experience in the chemistry department at Virginia Tech.

She worked with Professor James McGrath and other professors in that department, including Alan Esker. The experience led her to consider earning a doctoral degree at Virginia Tech, which she completed in 2009.

Arnett now an associate professor in the Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering, has maintained connections with professors and programs at Virginia Tech. Those ties have led to a series of collaborations, the latest of which is a three-year $800,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) seed grant to help more African American students who are interested in STEM fields to obtain graduate degrees. Arnett is principal investigator for that grant project.

Her co-principal investigator is Maren Roman, associate professor of sustainable biomaterials and director of GlycoMIP, an NSF Materials Innovation Platform, housed in the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. The team is in the third year of the grant and recently submitted an application for a six-year, $4.2 million award. Esker also is on the project team.

The grant project

The award is through the Partnership for Research, Education, and Materials (PREM) program. According to the NSF, “The aim is to enable, build and grow partnerships between minority serving institutions and NSF’s Division of Materials Research-supported centers to increase recruitment, retention, and degree attainment by members of those groups most historically underrepresented in materials research, and at the same time support excellent research and education endeavors that strengthen such partnerships.” The grant is awarded to the historically Black college or university or minority-serving institution applying for it. In this case, that institution is Florida A&M University.

Because Arnett had worked with Virginia Tech researchers, including Roman, the university was a logical choice as a partner for the award, she said. Esker said Arnett envisions a pipeline that provides undergraduate and master’s degree students with the experiences they need to successfully apply for and complete advanced degrees. The team hopes to build a sustainable platform to support and retain those students. 

Partnering with GlycoMIP

Roman and Arnett had explored seed grant funding opportunities before the NSF award opportunity arose. Esker, who worked with them, recalled efforts to obtain grant funding started while Arnett was a faculty member at Fisk University.

Roman said their first grant, a Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Virginia Tech Institute of Critical Technology and Applied Science, provided an opportunity for some undergraduate students from Florida to come to Virginia Tech for a summer research experience, with funds to cover their expenses.

They wanted to expand that effort and the PREM grant offered a way to do that. “We pulled in the people that made sense and were passionate about this,” Roman said.

Roman said the PREM award offered both a means to build on their early efforts, and a way to fulfill Arnett’s primary objective to reduce barriers into graduate programs for students studying at Florida A&M University. In the process, working with GlycoMIP researchers would expose the Florida students to a critical “building block” in nature that was notoriously difficult to study.

GlycoMIP conducts research and operates facilities in the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and the University of Georgia’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. It was funded with a $23 million NSF grant and is one of four Materials Innovation Platforms in the nation. Other partner institutions include Brandeis University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

GlycoMIP focuses on glycomaterials, which are carbohydrates that every living organism produces. They are considered a fundamental building block in nature. Glycomaterials contain glycans, chains of sugars that have key roles in health and disease and may be useful in medical, commercial, and industrial applications. As abundant as they are, these building blocks are challenging to study because of their complexity.

Learning about glycans

Arnett works with chemistry and chemical engineering students at Florida A&M University. One of the first things Arnett and the Virginia Tech team established with the PREM grant was a seminar series featuring Virginia Tech faculty to augment Arnett’s class in polymer science at Florida A&M.

The first year of the lecture series was both eye-opening and educational, Arnett said. “Initially, it was mostly Virginia Tech faculty teaching us about glycan materials,” she said. “For me, when I first started, I didn’t know what a glycan was. I didn’t know how important they are to daily life. I’ve learned a lot from it and my students have learned a lot from it.”

More than a dozen of Arnett’s students have participated in undergraduate research experiences with Virginia Tech's GlycoMIP, learning even more about glycomaterials. Their experiences working directly with researchers in state-of-the-art facilities have helped them consider Ph.Ds. in chemistry or biochemistry, she said.

A two-way partnership

Arnett said the success of the partnership relies on the strengths each institution brings to it. “We’re not just getting things from Virginia Tech,” she said. “We’re offering students and trying to get students to go and pursue a Ph.D. or get involved in programs that are going to help them in the future getting jobs or moving into different areas of their careers. That’s kind of where we figure out how we can help each other.”

Arnett said one of the keys to keeping the collaboration strong has been the weekly meetings. “Sometimes we have big things to talk about, and sometimes it’s just, ‘what do we do next’ type of meetings,” she said. The team evaluates what proposals and projects have worked, and considers new ways to involve students and faculty, or tweak efforts that could be stronger.

Finding ways to encourage students

Arnett said initially the team had hoped that just giving students opportunities to do revolutionary research would be the spur students needed to focus on a graduate degree and immediately apply to a university for it, but the reality was not so simple. While many students expressed a desire to attend medical school or earn a doctoral degree, they also wanted to take a break after finishing their undergraduate work. “A lot of them come out tired because they’re also working basically full-time jobs and going to school at the same time. So, they’re tired.”

She encourages undergraduates to take advantage of summer research opportunities, noting that such an experience helped her consider graduate education. Also, such experiences may help energize students when they return to finish their undergraduate or master’s degrees at Florida A&M University. Over the years, while at Fisk University and now at Florida A&M, she has encouraged many undergraduates and master’s degree students to apply to and attend Virginia Tech or other institutions offering graduate degrees in students’ areas of interest.

Playing to strengths

Arnett said the partners have worked hard to recognize what each institution can do, and what limitations they face. “I think learning those different things helped us really transform how we want to proceed, what we think would be best for both universities, and also for the affiliates of the universities and the students who are involved in this.”

Roman said one of the greatest lessons for her has been learning about the work environment of smaller institutions like Florida A&M University. Three or four faculty members there also are part of the PREM grant team and want to do more research, but they must teach large numbers of students each semester, leaving little time for the other work, Arnett said. “It’s a huge teaching load and very limited resources.”

The PREM grant provides some funding for faculty to do research during summer months, and Arnett said the partners hope future grants can build on that. “I want to try for at least one month for each faculty,” she said.

A Hokie at heart

Arnett is pleased that several of her former students have attended Virginia Tech and successfully completed degrees. She said she is a Hokie at heart. “I’m always going to be. That’s just where it is. And I say if I can send more students, I will, in my capacity to do so.”

Roman and Esker note that she is an excellent role model for her students. They also point to the power of undergraduate summer research programs and their potentially lasting effects. Roman said, “What you do as an undergraduate can affect your entire career,” and can pave the way for other students, as well.