REU in Applied Physics at University of South Florida

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NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Applied Physics is a diverse and interdisciplinary area that is critical to technological and societal advances that affect our national competitiveness on the global level and lead to improvements in the quality of human life. This REU site in Applied Physics will strive to nurture the next generation of scientists and engineers who will work in areas of critical importance such as energy, environment, medicine, micro and nanoelectronics, information technologies, and other key enabling technologies. The primary goal of the NSF REU site is to provide high quality motivational research experiences in Applied Physics for students from undergraduate institutions to enter this important area of research, and continue their careers in Science and Engineering as graduate students. Main objectives are: (1) To provide research experience to students from predominantly undergraduate institutions, including minority and female students; (2) To facilitate learning of research methods, laboratory skills, critical thinking, organizational, oral and written communication skills; (3) Involvement in cutting-edge research where REU students can present their results at professional meetings and publish in peer-reviewed journals; (4) Engage students in projects with innovative concepts with potential to affect technology, to educate them on steps required to transform research ideas to commercial products, and to kindle the entrepreneurial spirit in some students that may help to propagate American ingenuity; (5) Make the research experience available to Community Colleges students who have not been engaged fully in higher education, but have the potential for achieving higher academic goals. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Students have the choice of working with one of 16 faculty mentors in diverse areas of research in Applied Physics that include: (1) materials for renewable energy, (2) magnetic and ferroelectric materials for sensors, (3) metamaterials, (4) nanocomposites, (5) bio-biomedical physics, (6) computational physics, and (7) atomic-molecular-optical physics. In addition, research experiences will be enriched by several special professional development programs such as weekly REU-wide seminar programs, a weekly lecture series in "Advances in Applied Physics", and workshops to develop oral and communication skills. At the end of the program students will present their work in a university-wide REU symposium, and a selected group of students will present their research results in national conferences. Students involved in application-oriented projects will learn the steps involved in transforming basic research into commercial products.