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Media Relations

Scientist at Work: Michael Edwards

IU Assistant Professor Michael Edwards showed off the charms of Indiana University and Bloomington last year while hosting a candidate for the Department of Chemistry's Ph.D. program.

Edwards had arranged meetings with faculty. Lunch at a downtown restaurant. A visit to the community farmers market. The young African-American woman liked what she saw, and she liked what she had learned about the department. She was almost ready to commit.

But first, she had a question. Was IU Bloomington a member of the National GEM Consortium, which provides fellowships and internships for promising minority students in the sciences?

"If IU was a GEM member, I'd come," she said.

Edwards' response: "Consider it done."

After multiple meetings, conference calls and lobbying efforts, the mission has been accomplished. IU Bloomington is now part of GEM, a network of universities and corporate partners established in the 1970s to promote graduate education for underrepresented minorities in the "STEM" disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"Indiana University will now be on the map as a GEM member," said Edwards, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "All the STEM disciplines on campus will have access to a database to recruit minority students, and these students will know there is a support system here for them."

Edwards, who earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physical chemistry from North Dakota State University, teaches undergraduate courses in introductory general chemistry and in environmental science, and a graduate course in environmental chemistry. His research interests include the fabrication of metal alloys for the storage of hydrogen gas.

For years he has been an advocate for improving campus infrastructure to support minority students in the sciences. For the GEM Consortium membership, for example, he traveled to meetings and worked closely with Marcus Huggans, a GEM programming specialist in Washington, D.C. He also reached out to IU alumnus Ken Miller and secured the support as a corporate partner of Miller's employer, Sabic Innovative Plastics, which has a manufacturing facility in Mt. Vernon, Ind.

"No one told me to do this," Edwards said. "I looked around and saw something that needed to be done."

Two years ago, an IU Bloomington chapter of the National Organization for Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) was established through the efforts of Edwards, Associate Professor of Chemistry Daniel Mindiola and the University Graduate School's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate program. A NOBCChE project to recruit and provide mentoring and support for minority students was one of four IU Bloomington projects chosen for funding this year from IU President Michael A. McRobbie's $1 million University Diversity Initiative.

Edwards said the efforts are having an impact, although IU still needs to do more to attract and support minority students in the sciences. "It's not going to happen overnight," he said.

There are now six graduate students in the chemistry department who are members of underrepresented minority groups. And the young woman who said she would come if IU were a GEM Consortium member? She is one of them.

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