MU partners with Stephens College to create women in STEM research program
Students will use horse stables as a ‘living laboratory’ to prep for clinical or biomedical careers.
Starting in fall 2024, the University of Missouri will partner with Stephens College to create Women in STEM Research at Stephens College (WiSRsc), a biomedical research program for Stephens undergraduates — especially those interested in equine veterinary health careers. The partnership aims to create a pipeline of future female clinical, research, and biotechnology professionals. One specific goal is to help alleviate the current equine veterinarian shortage.
Each year, a cohort of up to 10 first-year students at Stephens College — the second-oldest women’s college in the country — will start a curriculum in which they take classes together and collaborate on research projects as they progress through the four-year program. Members of each cohort will live in a dedicated dorm space to increase interactions, comradery, and peer support. The initial classroom curriculum involves fundamental research topics, such as logic, experimental design, statistics, analytics, persuasive communication, quantification, numeracy, and science communication.