Ricardo Alamillo (BS ’10) grew up in Santa Paula and attended Santa Paula High School, which lies in an agricultural area and does not send many graduates to college. But Alamillo wanted to be an engineer and applied to UCSB. He entered on a Dan Burnham Scholarship after attending the Summer Institute of Math and Science at UCSB, one of many programs run by the Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships (CSEP), which is hosted by the UCSB California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).

While at UCSB, Alamillo participated in several more CSEP programs, and received advice during his involvement in the national Society for the Advancement of Chicano and Native Americans in Science. After graduating, he earned a PhD at the University of Wisconsin, and is now an engineer at Apeel Sciences, a burgeoning local company started by CoE alumnus James Rogers (PhD ’12).

Alamillo is also working with Apeel’s Engineering Department leadership team to design career-planning programs, especially for younger engineers, similar to what CSEP offered, because, he says, “I want them to have the same opportunities and resources I had. No one in my family or my network had graduated from college. The CSEP programs provided resources, a network, and a support system for me and other ambitious like-minded people to get through college and achieve our full potential.”

Jasmine Hunt (PhD ’10) was a more traditional student. “She was really good at research but also really good at communicating,” recalls her advisor, Craig Hawker, materials professor and director of the entrepreneurially oriented CNSI. Through her involvement in CSEP programs, Hawker says, “She got turned on to policy, and after earning her PhD, went to Washington, D.C., for a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She loved it, stayed, and is now chief of staff for Senator Dick Durban (D-IL), the ranking Democrat on many committees.” 

“We work with faculty, with community members, and with local industry on new initiatives to train the next generation of scientists and engineers,” says CSEP director, M. Ofelia Aguirre. “It is through these valued partnerships that we are able to have an impact on student success.” CSEP partnerships and programs  can also have a big effect on securing grants for scientific research. 

Increasingly, funding agencies require research grant proposals to have strong “broader-impacts” components and evaluation, whether for professional development, mentorship, community outreach, or education. “To secure funding in an increasingly competitive environment, your science has to be great, but so do your education pieces,” says Hawker.

A process might start when a faculty member comes to CSEP seeking a broader-impacts component to include in a grant proposal. Aguirre and her staff of seven then work with the professor to identify suitable CSEP programs, or even to create a new one to fit the professor’s specific needs. In one such program, the School for Scientific Thought, high school students come to campus on five consecutive Saturdays to take a free class developed and taught by an instructor who is a UCSB graduate student or a postdoctoral research training fellow. Each class is based on the instructor’s science and engineering research, and the instructor is mentored by faculty advisors and CSEP staff.

“The graduate students learn to develop and teach a course, which requires them to communicate science effectively, a critical skill whether they go into industry, government, or academia,” says Wendy Ibsen, CSEP associate director. “We have all the existing infrastructure: we recruit the high school students, train the teaching fellows, and handle all the logistics. The instructors just have to provide the content and focus on teaching.”

Spending five Saturdays meeting graduate and undergraduate students can change the high school students’ perspective — and their lives. “They can go from thinking college is out of the question to thinking, ‘I could come here.’ And they do come,” Ibsen says.
Another powerful collaboration is the PIPELINES program (Initiatives for Powerful Engagement and Learning in Naval Engineering and Science), a partnership with the Port Hueneme naval base in Camarillo, funded by the Office of Naval Research. PIPELINES networks students and veterans with local industry and, says Maria Teresa Napoli, CSEP community college programs manager, “helps them develop valuable skills that make them competitive job applicants.”
 
PIPELINES consists of teams of undergraduate students working on real-world Navy engineering design projects, under the guidance of an engineer at the base and a UCSB graduate student. Students also participate in various professional-development activities at UCSB.

Explains Napoli, “CSEP was looking for new ways to help students develop workplace-relevant skills. A partnership with the base made that possible.”