SURPINT receives grant for program funding

Tuesday, Sep 27, 2022

The University of Texas at Arlington’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Integrative Physiology (SURPINT) recently received funding from a grant that will benefit the program. SURPINT focuses on providing interested students with the necessary skills to perform academic research within the STEM field.

Associate professors Robert Matthew Brothers and Michael Nelson both created this program during 2021 with summer 2022 being the first year it received grant funding. The program is funded by the grant from the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH). NIH was interested in getting more underrepresented minorities engaged in academic research experiences to hopefully increase their ultimate participation within the STEM field. The program was awarded a five-year grant over the course of five summers.

“This grant focuses on providing research experiences for undergraduate students,” Dr. Brothers said. “There is a specific focus on underrepresented minority students to get them interested in the overall field of STEM and expose them to what stem research means in the field of integrated physiology.” 

The SURPINT program is unique due to many reasons. It is open to all students and majors, not just kinesiology students. Additionally, it is open to non-UTA students as well. Almost 20% of individuals involved within the labs this past summer session were not UTA students. The program’s main purpose is to get participants familiar with academic research. While their undergraduate classes teach the technical side of research, SURPINT will add to that a new area of academic research within labs. The program assists students’ academic careers, but also opens their eyes to not only a neat field but an important one as well.

During 2021, the program was unfunded and purely a pilot program. With this grant officially funded by AHA and NIH, there are more opportunities for the program to grow and for the students as well. Some benefits include participants receiving a competitive stipend while in the program, increased participation, and additional experiences for the students. This year, students can travel to an AHA meeting in Chicago in early November, completely funded by the grants.

“The funding will further help the students with more opportunities and experiences,” said Brothers. “It also follows the mission of the grant in getting students interested and engaged in this field of research.” 

Not only is there a direct impact of the grant on the students by providing more opportunities and more research participation, the program's faculty is also greatly impacted. It allows them to educate more students outside of the classroom and in a research lab setting. The program also allows faculty to provide an emphasis on UTA which in turn helps the department of kinesiology and CONHI showcase the valuable educational opportunities on-campus.

Brothers is the principal investigator on the AHA grant and alongside Nelson, who oversees the NIH grant. Additional faculty collaborators are Kenyatta Dawson, Director in the Office of Undergraduate Research, and David Keller, Associate Dean and Professor.

“This program is a great opportunity for the students and that’s what we want,” said Brothers. “We want to get students involved and exposed to the research end of STEM and this program is a great way to accomplish that.” 

-Written by Midori Hrinda, UTA College of Nursing and Health Innovation