Earlier this year, UConn inducted three graduate students into the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). The NSF GRFP is a highly sought-after opportunity, providing financial support for graduate scientific study.
Besides their can-do attitudes and wicked smarts, the three students shared something in common: they were all participants in UConn’s Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates in Biological Sciences (RaMP) program.
RaMP is a nationwide initiative funded by the NSF in 2022. UConn’s RaMP program centers on the theme of “Genomic Novelty” — investigating how and why genomes change over time. Its faculty mentors include professors from the Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology; Physiology & Neurobiology; and Molecular & Cell Biology.
The program’s unique structure allows participants to pursue two major research milestones over the course of a full year: an independent project, advised by graduate student and faculty mentors, and an all-cohort group project which culminates in a summer publication.
In 2024, the UConn RaMP cohort published the world’s first complete genome sequence of the desert hairy scorpion. This year, they did the same for the Everglades mink, one of the rarest mammals in the United States.