REU Site in Sustainable Urban Environments

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This three year REU Site program in "Sustainable Urban Environments" (SUE) at the University of Cincinnati (UC) will focus on techniques to study Access to Clean Water, Renewable Energy Sources, Carbon-Sequestration Methods, and Improved Urban Infrastructure. The research projects selected for the REU Site are motivated by four of the Grand Challenges for Engineering produced by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The goal of this eight-week summer REU Site program is to provide undergraduate students with research training and seminars and workshops on the use of modern technology in conducting and disseminating cross-disciplinary research. The program intends to encourage talented undergraduates to enroll in graduate school by exposing them to research. Students will be placed in teams and guided on a research project by faculty member(s) and a doctoral student. They will participate in a seminar series to train them to conduct research and participate in interactive workshops to provide the research skills to disseminate their findings. Each team will make biweekly presentations and progress reports, and at the end of the program present a technical paper, poster and power-point presentation. The participants will be encouraged to engage in co-authored presentations and publications that make significant contributions to their field of research in the new emerging areas of SUE. Students will also participate in coordinated social and scholastic activities including: 1) a university-wide welcome picnic; 2) a week-long annual Undergraduate Research Poster Forum (URPF), which includes poster presentations, an awards banquet, a distinguished guest lecture, ?People?s Choice Awards, ? and GRE preparation session; and 3) e-journal of papers to disseminate research with UC undergraduate students as co-authors. Finally, pre- and post-surveys by participants and evaluations by judges will be used to conduct the formative and summative assessments.The REU Site program will introduce undergraduates from diverse engineering backgrounds to engineering and science. This hands-on interdisciplinary laboratory/computer simulation research experience is expected to help in recruiting and retaining students in engineering or science programs. The research projects selected also show how engineers solve problems for society at large, which will be appealing to women and minorities who tend to choose pathways leading to careers that improve quality of life generally. The program will encourage talented undergraduates to enroll in graduate school by exposing them to research. Since 50% of the participants recruited will be minorities and women, the project will increase the number of underrepresented graduate students involved in research.