REU Site: Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Field Research at Mountain Lake Biological Station

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This REU Site award to University of Virginia's Mountain Lake Biological Station, located in Giles County, Virginia, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2015-2019. The project supports guided but independent, self-motivated original biological research in field-based ecology, evolution, and behavior. Students live and work full-time at the biological field station. They participate in formal training in the design and conduct of research, scientific ethics and professional behavior, writing and presentation techniques, and other matters of scientific and academic life. Students prepare written and oral proposals and final reports. Participants are included in the rich, supportive, collaborative, and stimulating intellectual and social life at the field station. Mountain Lake has hosted a NSF REU-Sites program since 1993.It is anticipated that a total of 50 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. A high proportion of program alumni publish their work (33%) and matriculate in graduate programs (44%). The program includes women (72% in past years), students from small colleges (39%), and participants from groups underrepresented in science (35%). The project partners with three outside groups: Hampton University (HBCU), University of Puerto Rico, and the Ecological Society of America's SEEDS program. Students are recruited nationwide via a nearly 1000-member list of personal and organizational contacts and partner pre-screening. A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure (Directorate for Biological Sciences) will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. 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 http://mlbs.org/reuprogram or by contacting the PI (Dr. Eric Nagy at enagy@virginia.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Butch Brodie at bbrodie@virginia.edu).