Four assistant professors at Binghamton University were awarded the 2022-2023 Presidential Diversity Research Grant (PDRG) by the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

The PDRG consists of “grants of $5,000 to $8,000 [that are] awarded annually to successful applicants,” according to the DEI’s website. All four recipients of the 2022-2023 PDRG are assistant professors and come from across the institution, according to a Dateline announcement. The recipients were Kanisha Bond, assistant professor of political science, Miya Carey, assistant professor of history, Ana Laura Elías Arriaga, assistant professor of physics and Adam Session, assistant professor of biology.

According to BU President Harvey Stenger, the grant, which is awarded to faculty in any department, particularly aims to help foster the research and careers of faculty members that are underrepresented minorities.

“The PDRG, which began in 2018, is now in its fourth year at [BU],” Stenger wrote in an email. “The grant is specifically designed to support newly appointed tenure-track faculty with their efforts to secure tenure and promotion, especially those from economically, historically underrepresented populations in tenure-track faculty positions to tenure.”

Stenger said 21 BU faculty members have been awarded the PDRG, and the majority of them were awarded tenure, or are on track to gain tenure and promotion — initiatives that may benefit the University in whole.

“This grant is one of our many initiatives that continues to demonstrate [BU’s] efforts as an accredited premier R1 institution in research and diversity and one that is making a difference for our faculty,” Stenger wrote.

Elías Arriaga, a recipient of the grant, spends her career researching the engineering and characterization of novel materials, and also works with two-dimensional (2D) materials in her physics classes. Elías Arriaga said she is dedicating her grant to a project dealing with van der Waals solids and 2D materials, and said the grant will benefit BU in whole.

“It is also very important for everyone to know the efforts that our University makes to improve diversity and inclusion among faculty members,” Elías Arriaga wrote in an email.

Samarra Graiser, a student of Elías Arriaga’s and a senior majoring in physics, spoke highly of Elías Arriaga. Graiser said she has learned much about 2D materials and found the class rewarding.

“I started working with professor [Elías Arriaga] this semester, and it was very intimidating at first because I had no experience working with 2D materials,” Graiser wrote in an email. “Now, I routinely conduct experiments growing molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) on highly oriented pyrolytic graphene (HOPG). I also analyze the Raman spectra for each sample to check its properties. The process is challenging, but it’s rewarding to learn concepts in class and then apply them in a laboratory setting.”

Carey, another recipient of the grant, conducts research revolving around the social understandings of the coming of age of Black girls in Washington, D.C., as well as the relationship between the Girl Scouts and the civil rights movement. Carey plans to use the PDRG to conduct archival research in Washington, D.C., write and submit a journal article and finish her first book.

“Oral histories are a large part of my project, so I hope that I am able to do more of those things while in Washington, [D.C.],” Carey wrote in an email.

Carey said she is particularly interested in changing people’s misconceptions regarding the coming-of-age process for Black girls.

“Our historical understanding of adolescent Black girls’ lived experiences, specifically coming of age, has been framed primarily by trauma — racial, sexual or gender-based violence,” Carey wrote.

Krystal Honeyghan, a student of Carey’s and a junior with an individualized major of Black femme autonomy, said Carey deserved the grant.

“I wasn’t aware of her being the recipient of the grant, but I’m not surprised to hear that,” Honeyghan wrote in an email. “She’s incredibly thorough with her teachings and detail-oriented when it comes to lectures, discussions and the assignments we’re given. Her class invites a lot of active, critical thinking and I appreciate the way she is diverse in choosing the supporting sources to lecture topics.”