Scholarships and Awards
NSBP has several scholarships named after prominent African American physics and astronomy pioneers. Names scholarships include the Willie Hobbs Moore Scholarship, named after the first African American female to earn a Ph.D. in physics, the Michael P. Anderson and Ronald McNair scholarships, named after these two astronauts that perished in separate Space Shuttle accidents. Sponsorship of an NSBP scholarship allows you to be associated with the best students in our community, and with the legacy of the pioneering African American physicists and astronomers.
In addition to scholarships NSBP has other awards including Outstanding Dissertation of the Year and Best Conference Poster Awards.
College Student
Chapter Support
NSBP is establishing college chapters at HBCUs and other institutions with a sustained enrollment of 5+ NSBP student members.Much research has shown that students’ participation in professional associations is a key determinate of their academic performance, retention and career outcomes. NSBP partners with other physics societies, i.e., SPS, OSA, SPIE and MRS to support and strengthen our college physics clubs.
With your support NSBP and our partnering societies can offer students materials and information on K-12 outreach, career and membership services, information and advocacy, and community building that all helps to keep students in the pipeline.
NSBP-Net
Many years ago NSBP started an email group list called NSBP-Net. NSBP-Net was a principle way to send out career information and advice to both our professional and student members.
Today in partnership with MentorNet (www.mentornet.net) NSBP-Net has been transformed to offer our student members the opportunity to have a one-on-one e-mentoring experience with a working physicist. MentorNet has been proven to be effective in providing "real world" information, encouragement, advice, and networking opportunities.
Working physics teachers, professors, researchers, as well as physicists working in other sectors can help NSBP-Net by going to the MentorNet website to sign up as mentors. Organizations that are particular effective in signing up physicists as mentors will have their brand recognized on the NSBP website via a banner ad.
Financial support for NSBP-Net will allow NSBP to develop specific mentoring curriculum for physicists and to consistently make upgrades to the enabling technology.
Career Services
NSBP is dedicated to the career successes of its
members. At its website the organization
maintains a jobs board as well as a library of other career information. Your sponsorship of NSBP career services at the $20K level will
entitle your company to unlimited postings on the NSBP jobs board, and the
opportunity to have other content posted on the NSBP Career Services pages
promoting opportunities in your company.
K-12 Outreach
Recent statistics indicate that more students and more students are taking physics in high school. But a closer analysis indicates that access to a physics course is much lower for students in urban schools, and even within a single district, schools with higher African American enrollment are less likely to have a physics course.
As an organization dedicated to raising the general knowledge and appreciation of physics in the African American community, NSBP is committed to K-12 outreach.
Your sponsorship of our pre-college programs will allow us
to develop mentoring and distance learning programs for secondary school
students, as well as workshops for in-service K-12 teachers.
International Outreach
NSBP has long had an interest in physics in Africa. Just like it is for the US, physics is crucial for African economic develop, eradication of poverty, political stability and security. Physics is a global enterprise, and American physicists needs be globally-engaged in order to remain at the forefront of world science and technology.
In 1988, the Edward Bouchet Abdus Salam Institute (EBASI) was created by Professor Abdus Salam, the late Nobel Laureate and Founding Director of the InternationalCenter for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Since then EBASI has been nurtured by African physicists affiliated with ICTP and by members of NSBP. The objectives of EBASI include:
[1] Providing a mechanism for synergistic scientific and technical collaborations between African and American physical scientists, engineers, and technologists;
[2] Enhancing the impact of science and technology on the sustainable development of the countries on the African continent, and more specifically;
[3] Increasing the technical manpower pool working in Africa today by facilitating the training of Ph.D. students from African universities.
More recently NSBP has been working with various journal publishers to broaden their markets in Africa, thus providing African physicists with access to the primary research literature.
NSBP is helping to build astronomy capacity in South Africa. South Africa occupies a unique geographical position relative to locations of most of the telescopes in the world. Recognizing this strategic advantage the South African government has decided to invest heavily in astronomy/astrophysics, and several universities have combined resources to offer the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP), a graduate program in astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and space sciences. Through a generous grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation NSBP is sending American students and faculty to South Africa to participate in NASSP.
Future plans for our international programs include a Science Diplomacy workshop, and even greater opportunities for international student/faculty exchanges.
Your support for our international efforts will help NSBP develop physics talent on an international scale.
Joint Annual Conference of the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists
Joint Annual Conference of the National Society of Black Physicist and National Society of Hispanic Physicists brings together over 500 African American and Hispanic American physics students and professionals. This conference has a cutting-edge scientific program as well as a student professional development program that includes mentor-protege match-making and a recruiting fair.
