Per Montgomery College: Montgomery College (MC) has received a five-year cooperative agreement award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology through its Professional Research Experience Program, (NIST-PREP). The NIST-PREP award, which began April 1, 2023, will provide up to 250 placements annually for MC students at NIST’s laboratories in Gaithersburg, as well as research opportunities for current MC faculty. The new project continues the NIST-PREP project at MC, which has run from 2018 to 2023. The new five-year award provides up to $7,461,117. Students selected for NIST-PREP will have the opportunity to work with research mentors at NIST, and will receive stipends as well as professional development and mentoring. They are eligible to participate in multiple terms, and can be appointed to NIST internships when they transfer to four-year institutions with NIST-PREP awards.
The new program builds upon MC’s first NIST-PREP cooperative agreement award, and adds significant student support, mentoring, and professional development opportunities. MC has received NIST funding since 2012, when 11 students interned at NIST in a pilot program. In 2014, NIST awarded the college\College a NIST Measurement Science and Engineering (MSE) cooperative agreement award that supported over 100 internships. During the first NIST-PREP project from 2018 to 2023, 125 students received a total of 228 internship placements, meaning that many students received more than one appointment. One faculty member also received a research appointment.
