The UNPAK Project: Much More Than a CURE

Abstract

AbstractOver a decade ago, faculty researchers at primarily undergraduate institutions embarked on a project motivated as much by questions about plant genomics as by commitment to undergraduate mentoring. The project gained funding from NSF and also an acronym: UNPAK, Undergraduates Phenotyping Arabidopsis Knockouts. The project aims to test ideas about how often mutation results in detectable change in plant traits important in both ecology and agriculture, relying on the premier model species in plant science, much like the lab mouse in biomedicine. UNPAK has two major tenets. First, it harnesses the hands, eyes and brains of undergraduates across many campuses to amass and analyze its data and analyses. Second, it connects faculty and students on these campuses to build and share social, cultural and human capital, essential for scientists at all stages to continue to advance and flourish. Social science colleagues have joined UNPAK to assess this second tenet and to examine its influence as student motivations and access to resources before and after graduation, and the project’s impact on faculty careers. More basically, UNPAK fosters friendships and solidarity, the underpinning of social groups that are working toward the intertwined goals of sustainability and social justice.