Faculty and staff from the Graduate School of Education, ALPHA Center, and the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences recently honored the inaugural class of nine students taking part in a program that aims to prepare science and math majors for careers as teachers.

The UC Riverside Noyce Scholarship Program, which started in 2009 and is funded through a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, held a recognition ceremony May 22 at the Holiday Inn Express in Moreno Valley.

The students, who receive a $10,000 scholarship when selected, are paired with mentor teachers and are required to spend a minimum of 30 hours per quarter teaching and observing in the classroom.

The following students were honored: Mayra de La O, Mary Camacho, Rosalba Esparza, Chuong Vu, Miguel Saucedo, John Nguyen, Chiara Hodgkinson, Angelica Ruiz and Fallyn Thompson.

The following staff and faculty are involved with the program: Pamela Clute, Noyce principal investigator; Maria Simani, Noyce co-principal investigator and director; Brad Hyman, Noyce co-principal investigator and faculty advisor; Leslie Bushong, Science and Math Initiative coordinator; Anne Jones, director of teacher education; David Livingston, supervisor of teacher education; and Reba Page, a professor and Noyce program evaluator.

Program organizers are recruiting students for future classes. For more information, visit smi.ucr.edu/noyce.html.