Background

Our Program is designed to promote and support research, mentoring and community. SOARS Protégés can participate for up to four (4) summers conducting research in atmospheric and earth-system sciences. SOARS offers comprehensive financial support for summer research, conference travel, as well as undergraduate and graduate school funding. Over 90% of SOARS Protégés advance to graduate school; and many have entered the workforce with the MS degree, and/or continued onto the PhD degree.

Atmospheric Sciences include research ranging from processes, such as how individual water molecules condense on dust; how pollutants are suspended in the air; to examining how solar flares, two and a half times larger than the earth itself, influence the upper atmosphere of the entire planet. Some of the exciting areas of research in geosciences include understanding a rapidly changing climate and its impact on the Earth and its inhabitants; severe weather events like deep hail, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods; and the changing, chemical composition of the atmosphere.

SOARS invites students from multiple STEM disciplines -- including chemistry, ecology, engineering, geography, mathematics, meteorology, physics, and the social sciences--to deepen their expertise in understanding the Earth’s Atmosphere. In particular, SOARS seeks to involve students from groups that are historically underrepresented in the sciences, including Black or African-American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latino, female, first-generation college students, veterans, and students with disabilities. SOARS welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students; students who have experienced, and worked to overcome, educational or economic disadvantages, and/or who have personal or family circumstances that may complicate their continued progress in research careers.