Frontier Physics and Astronomy Research with Technical Presentations

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The UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy will host a 10-week summer REU program providing a rich experience in research for participating undergraduates each year. The department has a long history of training undergraduate students. Prospective REU mentors are faculty mentors who have devised well-defined research projects of appropriate scope and who will initiate and oversee the participants' progress. Four areas of physics are targeted: plasma physics, solid-state physics, astrophysics and high-energy physics. The aim of this REU program is to convey to the student participants the full range of activities involved in the research process. This includes carefully defining the project in a realistic way, actually carrying out the planned research activities (a mix of data acquisition, data analysis, theoretical explorations, and final interpretations) and the written and oral presentation of the final results. Some emphasis is given to the technical and oral presentations in this REU because of a strong belief that writing and speaking about ones' data and results are a critical, oft-ignored component of research, and that this is true in any research environment be it university, government, or industry. The individual research programs will be augmented with group activities such as weekly seminars, lab tours, museum tours, a desert telescope experience and other social events. The program is aimed at a geographically and culturally diverse group of upper-division (junior level) undergraduate students in the physical sciences.