Project STAR (STEM Training And Research)
Project STAR is a 4-year research study funded by the National Science Foundation.
Our team is passionate about supporting efforts to broaden participation in STEM fields through research mentoring. Our project is geared toward understanding how students and mentors dynamically relate to each other during summer research apprenticeships.
Learn more about our team and the research below!
Project Leadership
Rachael D. Robnett, Ph.D.
Project PI
Dr. Robnett received her doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She joined the UNLV Department of Psychology in 2013. Dr. Robnett’s interdisciplinary program of research draws from developmental science, social psychology, educational psychology, and gender studies to attain a holistic understanding of social development during adolescence and emerging adulthood.
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Much of Dr. Robnett’s research focuses on identifying, understanding, and rectifying social-structural inequities in academic contexts and society more generally. Specific areas of study include gender stereotyping, critical consciousness/empowerment, academic decision-making, and romantic relationship norms. Dr. Robnett’s research is supported through grants from the National Science Foundation. She is the Director of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada and an Associate Editor at Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Gloria Wong-Padoongpatt, Ph.D.
Co-PI & Study 2 Lead
Dr. Gloria Wong-Padoongpatt (she/her) is an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The centerpiece of her research focuses on mental health issues among marginalized individuals. Dr. Wong-Padoongpatt investigates the impact, mechanisms, and individual variations in stress responses to microaggressions, an everyday form of discrimination. She also examines the ethnic and gender differences in risk factors for different types of addictions.
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More recently, she has investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the most vulnerable communities and the anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic. Wong-Padoongpatt’s research has been published in the Race and Social Problems, the Journal of Counseling Psychology, the Behavioral Medicine, and the Asian American Journal of Psychology, among others. Dr. Wong-Padoongpatt is currently the associate editor for the Asian American Journal of Psychology. Outside of scholarly work, Wong-Padoongpatt loves to coach hockey and advocates for womyn in professional sports.
Courtney Luedke, Ph.D.
Co-PI & Study 1 Lead
Courtney Luedke (she/her/ella) received a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MA in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Courtney Luedke’s research focuses on transforming Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students’ experiences through anti-racist practices within higher education.
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Within this broader context, her research agenda focuses on a) educational access for BIPOC students across the educational pipeline; b) challenging racist institutional and organizational practices; and c) (re)imagining validating and inclusive educational environments. She adopts critical approaches to examine these issues by challenging power structures and promoting social change. As a trained sociologist and educational researcher, she uses critical qualitative research methods to explore students’ experiences in higher education environments. Luedke is a proud mamí scholar and a #ChingonaSisterScholar. She enjoys strength training and spending time in the sun and by the water. She is an avid lover of iced coffee and lattes and can be found exploring new coffee shops.
Project Details
In an effort to broaden and diversify the STEM workforce, a variety of federally funded programs provide undergraduates with resources that enable them to conduct authentic scientific research under the guidance of faculty mentors. Although it is clear that these mentoring relationships tend to be beneficial, it is also clear that students benefit to varying degrees. Existing scholarship provides limited insight into why some students thrive under their mentor’s guidance while others struggle to gain traction. The proposed research is guided by the idea that interpersonal dynamics and sociocultural background are central to understanding why some research apprenticeships are more successful than others. The findings will provide new information about how students and their mentors dynamically influence one another and how these dynamics are shaped by important background characteristics such as cultural values and personality traits that students and their mentors bring into the relationship. This information can be used to optimize commonplace mentoring programs that seek to help students from marginalized backgrounds make inroads into STEM fields.
The proposed research advances the research mentoring literature by delving into an underexplored dimension of STEM research apprenticeships. Namely, the project will illuminate the interpersonal context of STEM research apprenticeships by examining how interpersonal dynamics and sociocultural fit relate to students’ academic outcomes at the conclusion of the apprenticeship. The proposed research leverages best practices in qualitative and quantitative research in a mixed-methods approach to address the following aims: (1) Explore how students and research mentors reason about the relational features of research apprenticeships; (2) Examine longitudinal associations among sociocultural fit within the mentoring dyad, culturally responsive mentoring, and students’ academic outcomes; (3) Identify the ways in which students and their mentors dynamically relate to one another over the course of the apprenticeship and explore pivotal moments that alter the course of the relationship. These aims will be addressed across three studies that focus on students and research mentors who are involved in STEM research apprenticeships. The research will be carried out in partnership with pre-existing summer research programs at colleges and universities that serve students from a range of sociodemographic backgrounds. By centering the interpersonal context of mentoring relationships, this project will provide new insight into the dynamic interplay between students and their mentors as well as “secret ingredients” that distinguish between apprenticeships that are more versus less effective. In addition, the project’s use of the community cultural wealth framework distinguishes it from deficit models that have often characterized work focusing on students from marginalized backgrounds. Given the project’s interdisciplinary nature, findings will be well positioned to make contributions in a range of fields that include psychology, STEM education, and higher education.