REU Site: Effects of Energy Technologies on Environmental Systems

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The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory's (SREL) REU program provides scientific training and hands-on experience in research by actively involving undergraduates, especially those from under-represented groups, in projects with full time research scientists. Participants examine the influence of nuclear and fossil fuel energy production and associated technologies on biological properties of southeastern ecosystems. SREL is located on the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS), where a variety of habitats including pine and hardwood forests, abandoned farmlands, and freshwater streams and wetlands adjoin industrial facilities and anthropogenically-disturbed areas. The REU program seeks diversity and actively recruits minority applicants. Students accepted into the program are paired with faculty members with compatible interests, and perform independent research projects that interface with ongoing research at SREL. Faculty research areas are diverse, spanning scales from molecular to landscape, and involving plants, animals, and microbes as well as environmental chemistry, statistics and environmental remediation. Students participate in a series of workshops on research design, ethics, data collection and processing, and oral and written presentation of results. Students also participate in brown bag seminar-discussion groups and field trips to representative field sites. At the conclusion of the program, each student presents a brief seminar on their project before their peers and SREL faculty and staff, and prepares a scientific manuscript based on their research. Credit (3 hrs) for the research experience is available through the University of Georgia. For more information, students are encouraged to contact jagoe@srel.edu or visit www.uga.edu/srel/REU/index.htm.