Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State professor will use a federal research fellowship worth $50,000 over the next two years to help improve the early care and education of young American Indian and Alaska Native children.
Nicole Thompson, an MSU assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, received the award from the University of Colorado-Denver's Health Sciences Center and the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Research Center.
The fellowship is provided as part of a three-year grant to the UCD center from the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Sciences.
The research program seeks to advance the developmental sciences among AI/AN children. Thompson's two-year project begins Nov. 1.
"The (AI/AN) center will develop national research on AI/AN Head Start programs, seed local research partnerships, and provide training to new and emerging AI/AN researchers," explained Thompson, who also coordinates American Indian and Alaska Native Initiatives for the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives at Mississippi State.
She said the fellowship, amounting to $25,000 annually, will cover the costs of her time and salary, and support all travel and research costs over the next two years.
"I realize this is a very small amount of money in the grand scheme, but it is a huge amount in (terms of) Native education," said Thompson, an MSU faculty member since 2004.
"This is the first time a grant like this one has been awarded by the federal government, and the first time attention specifically is being focused on the early care and education of young American Indian and Alaska Native children," she added. "There are only a handful of people who engage in this work with this specific group of people."
Thompson will work with faculty at UC-Denver on a variety of research activities related to data collection, program design and implementation, grant applications, and on-site training activities in Denver. She will complete follow-up work at MSU.
Professor Dwight Hare, a department colleague, said Thompson will be conducting both qualitative and quantitative research across the country.
"She also will be engaging in training opportunities to enhance her grant-writing, data analysis and publication skills," he said.
Thompson, a Menominee/Mohican, received a bachelor's degree in elementary education, magna cum laude, in 1997, and a master's degree in education in 2001, both from East Carolina University; and a doctorate in elementary education from the University of Georgia in 2004.
According to experts, the American Indian and Alaska Native population in the United States is among the most heavily impacted by disparities in health, health care, and social and economic indicators. For AI/AN children, high rates of poverty, trauma and violence, morbidity and mortality, and inadequate health services present difficult obstacles to overcome in development.
For more information, contact Dr. Thompson at (662) 325-4867 or nt65@colled.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.