The McNair Scholars Program, named after the late Dr. Ronald E. McNair, an African American physicist and NASA astronaut who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion, is a federal TRIO program. The program is funded at 156 institutions across the United States and Puerto Rico by the U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to increase the number of students from underrepresented segments of society and disadvantaged backgrounds who have demonstrated strong, academic potential to go on to graduate study.