A Research Identity (RI) includes personal, role, and group-based defining oneself as someone who “solves problems by rearranging the stuff of the world to make new things.” In this National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) project, a team of sociologists engineering faculty, researchers, and administrators seek to build a graduate learning environment that promotes the development and assessment of students RI. Identities are “who we are,” and they powerfully influence our relationships, goals, and behaviors both in the short-term and long-term. Consequently, knowledge about students’ RI has the potential to greatly enhance student growth and achievement.

This project is grounded in sociological and psychological theories of identity and works work to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups within graduate programs at the nation’s largest HBCU and top producer of African-American engineers, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT).