Top science research jobs lack diversity. A California college program aims to curb that

For Tré Willingham, pursuing a doctorate degree at UC Irvine has felt isolating at times. Often the only Black student in his science classes, he recalls being the last one to be chosen when activities required a lab partner. He also has never had a Black professor.

“It’s very disheartening to never see anyone that looks like you,” said Willingham, who studies applied physics. “It makes it hard to believe that you can get there, and especially get there and actually be yourself.”

For Willingham and students like him, the state-funded Cal-Bridge program is helping them pursue their dreams of landing a doctorate in the sciences and joining the next generation of STEM professors. The program provides financial support, research opportunities and diverse mentors of similar backgrounds.

Such mentors make “it much easier to start to navigate these spaces and also believe that you can get to the other end,” Willingham said.

Cal-Bridge was founded in 2014 to help undergraduates at Cal State campuses pursue a doctorate in STEM in partnership with the University of California, helping to close the diversity gap in science fields. About 70% of the program’s 406 students have been admitted to doctorate programs. Three quarters of the program’s students are of color, almost half are women, and nearly two-thirds are first generation.

Studies have noted that the climate of STEM higher education programs is often unwelcoming for some minority populations. Women make up over half of the undergraduate student population at Cal State campuses, yet account for only 36% of the system’s STEM students. At UC campuses, only 24% of STEM undergraduates are Latino or Hispanic, 4% are African American and 1% are American Indian.

From Cal-Bridge’s first cohort of five undergraduate students, the program has grown to support about 60 each year. It has expanded from astronomy and physics to now include computer science and math. Students in the program can receive stipends, tuition assistance, mentorship and professional development.

But the journey to diversifying the STEM teaching field is very long.

So far, 15 Cal-Bridge participants have earned a doctorate. It takes students about eight years after joining Cal-Bridge, usually done during their junior year, to complete a doctorate — two years as an undergraduate and six years to complete their doctorate education.

“It’s only been 12 years since we started, so only this small group is getting their Ph.D. right now,” said Dr. Alexander Rudolph, Cal-Bridge’s executive director and founder. “But eventually we expect there to be more like 30 to 40 to 50 a year getting their Ph.Ds.”

The state Legislature has given $14 million over recent years to the program, which also has a sliver left over from an older National Science Foundation grant.

The program might also get a helpful boost in the Legislature as California pushes back against federal efforts targeting university equity initiatives. 

Democratic Assemblymember David Alvarez of Chula Vista introduced Assembly Bill 2660 in April to codify Cal-Bridge as a coordinated partnership between community colleges, Cal State universities and University of California campuses. Rudolph hopes that will help secure annual or multi-year funding for Cal-Bridge in lieu of making requests each year.

Alvarez told CalMatters that as the federal administration cut back on student loans and grants for Hispanic-Serving Institutions, California should do more to support its students.

“The lack of representation from first-generation students in the Ph.D. level of education speaks for itself,” said Alvarez. “We need to do something in California to demonstrate that we still believe that we have strength in diversity of our Ph.Ds, of our academia, and this (Assembly bill) is one way to try.”

Financial assistance allows students to prioritize academics 

Willingham, the UC Irvine student, hadn’t considered pursuing a doctorate earlier in his life. Now 31, the first-generation scholar is pursuing his doctorate with the goal of one day becoming a professor.

“No one around me was a doctor of anything,” said Willingham about his family and friends growing up. 

Willingham grew up in Littleton, Colorado where he attended Columbine High School. After high school, his father, who had served in the Air Force, and Willingham moved to Atlanta. In 2017, he moved to California where he began his higher education journey. He is now the father of two children, ages 12 and two, balancing family time with his studies.

Today, Willingham’s research focuses on creating new quantum materials and exploring how they could be used in future sensors and electronic devices.

Cal-Bridge has four programs: undergraduate, summer research, doctoral and postdoctoral. The undergraduate program is open to STEM students at Cal State campuses and community college students who plan to transfer to a Cal State. It receives up to 100 applications per year; about 60 students were accepted this past year. 

Willingham attended El Camino College and Compton College simultaneously to finish his associate degree quickly, then joined Cal-Bridge’s undergraduate program after transferring to Cal Poly Pomona. There, the program gave him $10,000 during each of his junior and senior years, which helped him get a car to commute to school from Los Angeles and stay focused by working fewer hours as a tutor.

“I was able to just sort of focus my attention a little better, not having to always think about how I’m going to pay the next bill,” said Willingham.

Later in Cal-Bridge’s doctoral program, Willingham received $40,000 in financial support for his first year of graduate school at UC Irvine. He used $16,000 to pay his tuition and the rest for living expenses. 

Mentorship helps students find their place in STEM 

It took Dr. Katy Rodriguez Wimberly, a Cal-Bridge alum, 13 years to become a research faculty member. She is now an astrophysics assistant professor at Cal State San Bernardino.

Wimberly researches near-field cosmology, studying neighboring galaxies that may be some of the first ever formed.

“It’s almost like galactic archaeology, like I’m looking at these little almost-fossil galaxies to learn more about the early universe and where everything came from,” said Wimberly.

She is also now the director of mentorship for Cal-Bridge. During her junior year as an undergraduate, she joined Cal-Bridge’s first cohort, helping her imagine what being an astronomer would be like. 

The mentors and the program’s monthly workshops showed her that while she didn’t see many Latina women like her teaching STEM on her campus, she could do it. When she was an undergraduate at Cal State Long Beach, she said, there were only two women professors from about 20 faculty in her department, and none of them Black or Latino. 

Cal-Bridge provided Latino mentors she wasn’t finding anywhere else. 

“It wasn’t like they were teaching me in a classroom, but they did kind of provide that cultural and kind of identity support,” said Wimberly.

Wimberly had applied to 11 doctorate programs as a senior undergraduate and was denied by all of them. Next, she applied and was accepted to Cal State Long Beach to pursue a master’s in physics. There, she raised her GPA, reapplied to doctorate programs and was accepted to UC Irvine. She graduated in 2021 with her doctorate in physics. 

At UC Irvine, Wimberly created a peer mentorship program for Cal-Bridge students as a way for alumni and graduate students of the program to support the undergraduate students. Mentors and mentees meet in small groups once a month, as well as have one-on-one meetings.  

“I structured it in a way to be more like, this is just your older cousin that’s telling you how to get through things,” Wimberly said. 

After she finished her doctorate, she had a three-year, full-time fellowship with the National Science Foundation. She served at UC Riverside with her former mentor, Laura Sales, an astronomer from Argentina and associate professor at the university. 

Learning from Sales made her feel more comfortable embracing her identity as a Latina. Sales taught her that she didn’t have to be an expert in all areas of astronomy, but that she would work alongside experts in different areas. 

Now as a professor herself for the last three years at Cal State San Bernardino, Wimberly offers the same mentorship to her students. Anytime she sees a Latina student who doesn’t have support from someone with a similar background, she tries to provide that support.

“Just because I know it can be so difficult,” said Wimberly.

Claire Rogers, a student at UC Irvine pursuing a doctorate in physics, knew she wanted to attend graduate school, but she didn’t realize how isolating the experience would be as the only woman in the room. She is a Cal-Bridge doctorate scholar researching observational astrophysics, looking for planets outside of the solar system to determine if there is life on those planets. She also focuses on how stellar astrophysics affects measurements when looking for planets.

Rogers was an undergraduate at Cal Poly Humboldt and joined Cal-Bridge during the first year the program expanded to her campus.

“Cal-Bridge was really helpful for providing a network of students at the same phase of their career at different CSU campuses but still working towards similar goals,” said Rogers.

She said that since the department on her campus was small, Cal-Bridge allowed her to connect with students at other campuses who were in similar positions.

The program provided her two mentors, a professor at her campus and a professor at UC Berkeley. The program also offered her guidance in applying for graduate school. 

“I’m sure it made a huge difference in my grad school essays, getting that feedback,” Rogers said.

Rogers participated in an undergraduate summer research program at the University of Wyoming through Cal-Bridge, where she dabbled in astrophysics research for the first time. Cal-Bridge’s summer program is open to community college and Cal State undergraduate students and allows students to participate in research projects at partner institutions. Out of around 200 applications, only 50 to 60 students get accepted to the summer program.  

“I really like spending time at a telescope … and dealing with all of the problems that come up when you are running a telescope overnight,” she said.

She was usually the only woman in her undergraduate classes, and in graduate school there were only three women in her cohort of 22 students.  

“I got very accustomed to being the only woman in a room,” said Rogers. 

She mentioned feeling isolated during her first year at UC Irvine, noticing that her classmates rarely showed up when she organized study groups and that the men in her lab would change the conversation when she entered the room. 

“I had a really hard time my first year with reconciling that I felt very unwelcome,” said Rogers.

She eventually found a support network outside of her original cohort, getting closer to other doctoral scholars in Cal-Bridge and having monthly movie nights together. 

“Cal-Bridge has made a huge difference to my career and my, sort of, finding my space in this field,” said Rogers. 

Rogers hopes to one day become a professor and be able to teach while continuing her research in observational astrophysics. 

“When I was new to physics it made a big difference for me to have women professors,” said Rogers. “I think it’s important for future students to also have that resource and that support, and I would like to be able to provide that.”

Brittany Oceguera is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.