By Stephen Nakrosis

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative on Tuesday said it gave a $6.9 million award to increase diversity of science, technology and math students on college campuses.

The grants will enable the expansion of aspects of University of Maryland, Baltimore County's successful Meyerhoff Scholars Program to both UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, the group said.

The Meyerhoff program is recognized as one of the most effective models in the country to help underrepresented students pursuing degrees in STEM fields, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative said. Program participants have earned 300 Ph.D. degrees, 130 M.D. degrees, 54 M.D./Ph.D. degrees, and 253 master's degrees, not counting current enrollment numbers.

Priscilla Chan, co-founder and co-chief executive of CZI said: "California's openness to new ways of thinking is what has made this state an innovation engine for the world, and the University of California has played a crucial role in that as one of the largest and most diverse public research universities in the country. With these new grants, we hope to help bring even more diversity of perspective and experience to our state - and to Silicon Valley."

The grants will allow the California universities to apply many of the models successfully used at UMBC, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative said.

UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are major sources of top talent for Silicon Valley, the group said.

Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative focuses on three core initiative areas -- Science, Education, and Justice and Opportunity.

--Write to Stephen Nakrosis at stephen.nakrosis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2019 18:48 ET (22:48 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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