REU Site Grant in Membrane Thin Film Science

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9820477University of Colorado Professor William B. Krantz This proposal seeks funds to continue the NSF-REU Site Program that has been administered for the past six years in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado. The focus of this NSF-REU program is membrane and thin film science, which has been identified as a critical need in an NSF Workshop report, three NRC reports, and by a past AICHE President. As such, the students participating in this REU Site Program work on research associated with the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Separations Using Thin Films (CSTF) for which the PI is Co-Founder and Co-Director. Both Co-Directors are award winning educators who have extensive experience in mentoring undergraduate research programs. The principal objective of this Site Program is to encourage promising students, in particular women, minority, and physically disadvantaged students, to go on to graduate school in order to pursue careers in engineering research. The students to be accepted into this program and the intended impact can be best judged from the statistics and outcomes of our prior NSF-REU Site Program. During the past six years, 770 students applied to our NSF-REU Site Program. REU wards were made to 73 students (9.5%), 63 of whom (86%) were from schools other than the University of Colorado (CU). University and State supported the 10 CU REU studentsmatching funds; hence, all NSF funds during the past six years have gone to support REU students from schools other than CU. Our REU participants included 35 women (48%) and 14 minorities (19%). The average GPA of our participants during the past three years ,Nas 3.79/4.00. Our REU students have co-authored 12 published papers (10 peer-review) and 13 presented papers. An aggressive effort by the Co-Directors resulted in a 96% response rate (25 out of 26 possible) to a follow-up survey taken at the end of the academic year following the students' participation in our 1996 and 1997 REU Site Programs. This survey indicated that 16 of these respondees went on to graduate school (2 are still completing BS degrees). The evaluation taken at the end of our 1998 ten-week summer program indicated that it excited interest in graduate studies by all 14 participants. We seek to continue this very successful program for three more years. Our proposed REU Site Program involves participation by 81% (13 out of 16) of our faculty in Chemical Engineering. It includes the following enhancements and novel features: (1) expansion from 11 to 15 REU students; (2) an REU Student Posters Competition to encourage students to present their REU research at subsequent technical meetings; (3) provision to pay travel expenses for REU students to present a paper on their research at a technical meeting; (4) an enhanced recruiting program for women and minorities that utilizes links to appropriate web sites (identified in this proposal); (5) a seminar program that focuses on preparing students to do research; (6) a meaningful program of social and cultural activities that is designed to complement the research activities; and (7) an effective program evaluation form and highly successful follow-up survey to gauge the effectiveness of this program. The University and State of Colorado (through our CSTF Center) are supporting this proposal with a total matching commitment of $126,640 amounting to 44% of the funds being requested from NSF; this includes a real-money (cash) contribution of $70,222.