Special to Long Beach Breeze
Long Beach resident Kyle Brown is one of only twelve University of Southern Mississippi (USM) undergraduates that have been chosen for the prestigious McNair Scholars Program at USM.
Officially known as The Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, the McNair Scholars Program is a federal TRIO program funded across the United States and Puerto Rico by the U.S. Department of Education. Scholars selected to the program come from disadvantaged backgrounds and demonstrate strong academic potential.
Competitive grant funding is awarded to institutions of higher education to prepare eligible participants in the program for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. Institutions encourage participants to enroll in graduate programs and then track their progress through to the successful completion of advanced degrees with an overall goal to increase the attainment of Ph.D. degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society. Since the program’s inception in 1999, Southern Miss has assisted more than 200 scholars.
Brown is a junior computer science major whose McNair Research, “Using Neural Networks to Predict Suicide Risk in Youth,” looks to create a Deep Learning model to predict the risk of suicide in high school students. With suicide the second-leading cause of death among this age group, the model will use survey data from the CDC's 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). Additionally, Brown plans to seek assessment of the system's apparent relevance from a medical professional. He is working under the advisement of Professor Joe Zhang in the School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering.
“We are thrilled to have an exceptionally talented group of undergraduate researchers this year,” said Dr. Daleana Phillips, director of the USM McNair Scholars Program. “Many are participating in conferences, research symposiums, researching in labs and even traveling offsite to conduct research, all while researching graduate schools and programs of interest.”
Phillips says the most exciting part of working with McNair scholars is watching the individuals and their skills as researchers evolve.
“I enjoy seeing them present their work at our McNair Research Symposium, and then share their excitement about securing assistantships, fellowships and other types of funding for their chosen graduate programs.
“Seeing them move on to pursue their dreams is truly inspiring and rewarding to me.”
Other 2024 Southern Miss McNair Scholars include Kalan Bledsoe from Batesville, Margaret Brune and Marcus Kirkland from Ocean Springs; Astrid Gomez, Drew Le, Keimirra Lewis and Rachel Wince from Hattiesburg; Jaylin Jones from Clarksdale; Teyanna Monroe from Vicksburg; Sadie Pitre from Poplarville; and Liz Wynne from Madison.
The McNair Scholars Program is named for the late Dr. Ronald McNair, a former NASA astronaut who earned his Ph.D. in laser physics; in 1984, he became the second African American to fly in space. Two years later, he was selected to serve as mission specialist aboard the ill-fated U.S. Challenger space shuttle.
The McNair Scholars Program is housed in the USM Graduate School. For more information about the program, visit www.usm.edu/mcnair-scholars-program/.
