REU Site for Sustainable Energy in the Chemical Sciences

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This Chemistry Division award supports a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site at the University of North Dakota (UND) for the summers of 2009-2011. The site is implemented by the Sustainable Energy Research Initiative and Supporting Education (SUNRISE) program. It is coordinated by program director Evguenii Kozliak of Chemistry assisted by co-PI Wayne Seames from the Department of Chemical Engineering. SUNRISE science and engineering faculty will serve as REU mentors to at least eight NSF-supported students plus additional students supported by other sources conducting chemistry-focused undergraduate research that contributes to the advancement of sustainable energy technologies. The ten-week summer program includes weekly sessions with an emphasis on publication-quality research projects and the improvement of oral and written communications skills. An ethics component is designed to motivate participants to learn, and more importantly, to practice ethics. SUNRISE is committed to training individuals who will develop the necessary innovative solutions to these problems and who can speak to the impact of these issues to diverse populations. Native American students will be recruited from two feeder programs, SUNRISE's Native American Freshman Experience and UND's American Indians in Engineering. SUNRISE partnerships with two minority serving non-doctoral California State University schools will be utilized to recruit students who otherwise would be unlikely to consider research as a career, including Hispanic, women and other underrepresented group students. Other participants will be recruited from non-research colleges and Universities in the upper Midwest. Students will conclude the program with a university-wide poster session.