REU-Site: Regional Initiative to Promote Undergraduate Participation in Experimental and Computational Materials Research

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NON-TECHNICAL PART: The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) will host a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site in experimental and computational materials research. This REU Site project involves a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) partner institution and two regional universities to recruit students from academic institutions where research opportunities are limited. UAB will offer a broad range of interdisciplinary materials research experiences to undergraduate students with a diversity of backgrounds in physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, and engineering. The undergraduate students will gain experience in materials synthesis, materials characterization, and computer modeling and simulations during their ten-week research stay at the UAB campus The scientific research projects have been specifically developed for undergraduates by an interdisciplinary team consisting of science and engineering faculty at UAB. They focus on emerging areas in materials research. UAB will offer a lecture series on scientific communications, responsible conduct of research, finding graduate school and funding graduate education, and commercialization of research ideas to all undergraduate participants. REU participants will publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals and/or present at professional meetings leading to a broad dissemination of new knowledge created in the undergraduate research projects. TECHNICAL PART: UAB will offer undergraduate research projects in materials under extreme conditions, thin film growth and characterization, microelectronic materials, laser materials, nanostructured biomaterials and composites, stimuli responsive polymers, electronic structure calculations of materials, and molecular dynamics simulations. Some research projects will also involve the use of national X-ray synchrotron and neutron diffraction facilities in materials research. The undergraduate students will carry out independent research while at the same time will be a part of an interdisciplinary research team. The undergraduate student projects will have short-term achievable milestones, while simultaneously contributing to longer-term scientific goals and technological applications. Teaming of REU participants with faculty and graduate students, giving poster and oral presentations, writing a research style paper, and attending training seminars in scientific communications and ethics will enable the REU students to understand what is required to become a research scientist with the critical skills needed for analyzing, interpreting, and presenting scientific data.