Amanda Case, an associate professor in counseling psychology, was recently awarded supplemental funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the organization’s STEM Day on May 10, 2025. This STEM Day also commemorates NSF’s 75th anniversary.
The funding will be used to enhance STEM outreach initiatives, particularly as it pertains to exposing students to STEM programming and building excitement about the field.
Case has been heavily involved in this type of outreach through DBG Detroit, an organization formerly known as Downtown Boxing Gym, that offers free, out-of-school-time programing on Detroit’s east side.
“The NSF STEM Day funding allows us to work with students outside of DBG in the local community and expose them to the exciting STEM programming that DBG offers,” says Case. “In addition, we’re providing professional development to educators where they can experience and then reflect on the pedagogy that is typically used in the STEAM Lab, and then create a plan for carrying some of that learning back to their formal and informal settings.”
Case is also the principal investigator for an NSF grant titled “Fostering Black and Latinx student STEM efficacy, interests, and identity: A participatory study of STEM programming and practices at one community-based organization.”
The nearly $2 million grant was awarded in 2023. This is year two of the five-year grant, which studies DBG’s innovative and impactful STEM-focused youth programming to better understand, measure, and magnify its long-term impact. Case works with co-principal investigators Jessica Hauser of DBG Detroit as well as Nielsen Pereira and Signe Kastberg, both from Purdue University.
Case hopes that the supplemental funding will broaden participation in DBG’s STEAM Lab and provide an avenue to share some of the findings from the NSF grant with a broader community of students and educators.
Click here to read more about this grant and Case’s work with DBG Detroit.