Engineering Student Thrives in Research

Craig Yates stood before the judges, hiding his nervousness while pointing out features of his biomedical engineering research on the characteristics of chitin whisker reinforced hydrogels.  His poster presentation went smoothly – thanks, in part, to advice he’s received through the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation.

As a Virginia Commonwealth University senior, Yates takes part in the alliance’s mentoring, social and intellectual activities – among them this week’s 6^th Annual Alliance Research Symposium hosted by VCU and its School of Engineering.  

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the alliance unites nine colleges across Virginia and North Carolina in working together to expand the number of minority students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – fields, along with health care, in which highly skilled jobs are in such demand that the federal government is emphasizing STEM initiatives.

Rosalyn Hobson Hargraves, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the VCU School of Engineering, remembers well being the only black woman in her electrical engineering class of 1991 at the University of Virginia.  But since then, she has seen substantial progress being made by VCU, U.Va. and other alliance schools in their minority recruitment efforts and student support systems.  

“Today at VCU’s engineering school, we have 140 black students and 40 are women,” said Hargraves, who holds dual appointments in VCU’s engineering and education schools. “Through the alliance, we are building a community.  When you have a community, you’re not alone.  Students now have a network of support.”        

This support has helped Yates attain top research opportunities.

“I was just jumping to work in Professor Gary L. Bowlin’s lab and I was able to do that with this project,” he said of his biomedical engineering mentor. “We worked on it every day for about four months and this is just preliminary research.”    

For Yates, 23, research is exciting.  “The whole trial and error process is fun,” he said of his research into a potential method of delivering medication through a sophisticated plastic implant.  “I thought when I started this project that I’d find what I set out to find.  But it’s really trying to take in everything I learn and re-apply it.”

As a graduate of the Appomattox Governor’s School for Arts and Technology in Petersburg, there was little question that Yates would push himself in college.  But it was in talking with VCU faculty that Yates set his course on biomedical engineering. He soon hopes to attend graduate school in that field or in molecular biology.

“I always worked with my Dad fixing things,” said Yates, who grew up in a multi-generational family of mechanics in Dinwiddie. “And I’ve always had a passion for science.”

 

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