REU Site: An Innovative Approach to Engage Underrepresented Minority Students in a Research Experience

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This REU Site award to Heritage University (HU), located in Toppenish, WA, will support the training of 30 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2015-2017. The overall research theme of molecular biology involves 12 mentors from HU and five regional partner institutions. Students can select from projects that include 1) genomic studies on plants at the University of Washington, Seattle; 2) polyploidy in plant evolution at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma; (3) insect molecular ecology at the USDA-ARS Lab, Wapato; 4) molecular plant pathology at Washington State University, Prosser; 5) plant genomics and biotechnology at Washington State University, Pullman; and 6) role of histone variants in chromatin structure and DNA barcoding of native plants at HU. The ten week research experience will include a one week workshop at HU that will train students on the scientific method, basic skills in molecular biology, keeping a laboratory notebook, data management in excel, and ethics/responsible conduct of research. The overall strategy is to provide undergraduate students with a fulfilling and challenging research experience supported by a richly mentored environment. Students will be recruited at HU, Yakima Valley Community College and Columbia Community College, with emphasis on underrepresented students. These opportunities will provide students from the Yakima Valley area with career options that include pursuit of graduate degrees in STEM. Students are tracked to determine their continued interest in their academic field of study, their career paths, and the lasting influences of the research experience. The program will be assessed by using the REU common assessment tool (SALG URSSA).It is anticipated that a total of 30 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be trained in the program. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences.Students are required to be tracked after the program and must respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information is available by visiting www.heritage.edu/REU , or by contacting the PI (Dr. Nina Barcenas at Barcenas_N@heritage.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Kazuhiro Sonoda at Sonoda_K@heritage.edu).