The Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program (McNair Scholars Program) is a federally funded program designed to prepare the next generation of researchers for doctoral study in the nation's top research universities. 

The program is named after the late Dr. Ronald E. McNair, who was the second African American to enter space.  Dr. McNair and the entire crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger perished in 1986 when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after it launched. 

Dr. McNair was born in Lake City, South Carolina on October 21, 1950.  He was raised in a low-income household during Jim Crow segregation.  McNair graduated as the valedictorian of Carver High School in 1967, graduated magna cum laude in Engineering Physics from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and earned a PhD degree in Physics from MIT with a specialty in laser physics.   

Below is an animated story on Dr. McNair, narrated by his brother Carl McNair.