Hostos Secures $2 Million NSF Grant for Innovative STEM Program, Marking Seventh Concurrent NSF-Funded Project at the College

Situated in a landscape where underserved communities often face barriers to finishing STEM degrees, these initiatives show the College’s commitment to equity and creating upward socio-economic mobility.
 

Hostos Community College is thrilled to announce that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $2M grant to fund the Hostos Engineering Academic Talent-2 (HEAT²) Scholarship Program through 2030, marking the College’s seventh concurrent NSF-funded award. This program will provide financial and academic support to 30 students pursuing associate and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical, and environmental engineering.

HEAT² builds on the success of the original HEAT program but is designed to be more inclusive to increase retention and graduation rates for STEM students. The program will offer comprehensive support, including scholarships of up to $15,000 annually for undergrad and $20,000 for postgraduate studies, faculty and peer mentoring, undergraduate research opportunities, exposure to STEM-related professional environments, and participation in STEM conferences.

“I am, once again, so proud of our faculty and their tireless dedication to the students  and their success,” said Hostos President, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. “Professor Rodríguez and his colleagues have shown consistently, by securing grants such as this, that they take to heart the mission of the College: to transform lives through education. Bravi!”

The HEAT² Team consists of Principal Investigator Yoel Rodríguez, Professor and Chair in the Natural Sciences Department, and Co-Principal Investigators Nieves Angulo and Clara Nieto-Wire, Professors in the Mathematics Department, and Antonios Varelas, Professor in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department. Additional key personnel include Physical Sciences Professors Anna Ivanova and Biao Jiang, who will serve as faculty mentors, and Associate Dean Ardie Walser from The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering.

 

From left to right: Professors Yoel Rodríguez, Nieves Angulo, Antonios Varelas, and Clara Nieto-Wire at a presentation of Mentorship within the S-STEM HEAT Program.

“We are grateful, inspired, and humbled by this recognition from the NSF. It is a dream come true to continue supporting our Hostos engineering students financially and through mentoring, helping them become great professionals, and contributing to diversifying the STEM workforce,” said Professor Rodríguez. “This award represents years of effort and hard work by our students, faculty, staff, and administration to make Hostos's Engineering and STEM programs competitive nationwide. For the College, this award signals that we, as a community college, are building a reputation for managing and successfully implementing large funding projects.”

 

Principal Investigator and Chair of the Natural Sciences Department Professor Yoel Rodríguez.

Through HEAT², Hostos continues its commitment to providing students with the resources they need to succeed and contribute meaningfully to the future of engineering. And for Prof. Rodríguez and the other faculty members, the rewards are personal. “Seeing these kids and the conditions in which they enter this institution, lacking preparation, lacking skills, and many economic challenges, they go all the way: From Hostos to Grove, Cornell, Stanford, wherever. Some of them continue on to grad school and they end up in jobs and even make more money than us. That is priceless. And this is the kind of reward we get every day working at this institution."