REU Site: Microbial community interactions and functions

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A Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Sites award has been made to The University of Tennessee that will provide research training for 10 students per year, for 10 weeks during the summers of 2013- 2015. This program is supported by the NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program, and the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure. The program focuses on microbiology and the interplay between the microbial community structure and microbial community function. Housed in the Department of Microbiology, the site has more than 20 faculty whom will serve as mentors and make their homes in Microbiology along with Earth & Planetary Sciences, Biosystems Engineering & Soil Sciences, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. There is a wide range of interesting and exciting projects for the students that span microbiology in environments spanning oceans and lakes, caves and polar regions, industrial and agricultural sites. Students are expected to perform full-time lab research as well as participate in seminars and workshops where they will receive training in responsible conduct in research, professional communication skills, career opportunities in industry and academia, and the graduate school application process. REU students have access to a rich array of individual mentor's facilities on the University of Tennessee campus and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The program's multi-phase recruitment effort consists of both traditional "hard copy" formats as well as digital-based advertising. Students will be selected based on academic record, research performance, and potential for outstanding research. Following their summer research, students will be surveyed to determine their continued interest in their academic field of study, their career paths, and the lasting influences of the research experience. Information about the program will be assessed by various means, including use of an REU common assessment tool. More information is available by visiting www.bio.utk.edu/microbiologyreu , or by contacting the PI (Dr. Wilhelm at wilhelm@utk.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Zinser at ezinser@utk.edu).