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The University of Tennessee

College of Arts & Sciences

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Welcome to PEER!

The Program for Excellence & Equity in Research (PEER) was created to increase the number of accomplished, competitive, and determined underrepresented minority students who pursue Ph.D.s in the sciences, attain careers in biomedical research, and contribute to our nation’s well being.

Biomedical research, in particular, has become a multi-disciplinary profession, bringing together fields like biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, and engineering to understand biological systems from the organism to the atom. Thus, the next generation of bioscientists will need more than a casual familiarity with these fields and will need to be skilled at working in teams across the disciplines to understand how biological systems work and how that understanding can improve human health.

PEER uses existing resources that are available at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to integrate advanced research, mentoring, and professional enrichment activities to enhance the academic experiences of our Scholars who will become the scientists of the future.  PEER believes this will shift the traditional training paradigm to one that contributes to the increase of minorities successfully gaining biomedical research careers.

The PEER graduate training program provides a financial award to qualified individuals to support their first two years of study in a Ph.D. program. The PEER award includes a stipend of $25,000/year plus tuition.

Events Calendar

Events Calendar



  • January 12, 2010
    “Negotiation for Success Workshop”
    Dr. Caroline Szymeczek, Professional Consultant in Higher Education
  • January 28, 2010
    “Preparing An Individual Career Development Plan”
    Dr. Cynthia Peterson, Professor and Head of BCMB
  • March 19-21, 2010
    UT-ORNL-KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit 2010
  • April 16-17, 2010
    “Effective College Teaching Workshop”
    Drs. Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent, co-directors of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI)

past events >>