REU Site: Nanoscale Materials Science and Engineering at Vanderbilt University

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NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (VINSE) summer REU site will offer STEM undergraduate students the opportunity to work closely with faculty on forefront research projects in the field of nanoscale science and engineering. VINSE faculty will provide REU students with a true interdisciplinary research experience in an environment where physicists, chemists, biologists, and all engineers collaboratively solve problems and create new scientific understanding. The overarching theme of the research projects will be nano-materials innovation and fabrication. The VINSE faculty are personally committed to directing the REU student research and mentoring. They will formally educate involved graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and faculty on how to mentor the REU students, to design an appropriate research project, and to form a mutually supportive group identity. The project is designed to build a sense of community among the students and the participating faculty, as well as expose the students broadly to research at the leading edge of nanoscale science and engineering. The project will put strong emphasis on recruiting students from underrepresented minority groups and schools with limited STEM research opportunities. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The promise of nanoscience and nanotechnology to revolutionize our lives in multiple ways (including unprecedentedly small and highly functional medical and computational devices) has captured the imagination of scientists, the attention of the media, and the support of funding agencies, with the result that the U.S. annual federal investment in nanoscience has reached $1.5B/yr, with a cumulative investment since 2001 of $23B. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are based on the ability to synthesize, organize, characterize, and manipulate matter systematically at the nanoscale, creating uniquely functional materials that can be inorganic, organic or biological, or a hybrid of any two or more of these. Consequently, nanoscience and nanotechnology pose formidable challenges that cut across traditionally distinct disciplines. Clearly, to meet these demands, the training of future scientists and engineers in the broad field of nanotechnology is of paramount importance. The interdisciplinary nature of nanoscale science and engineering means it inherently involves all of the sciences and engineering, including medicine, resulting in the need to train students at all levels in an interdisciplinary manner. To achieve this goal the Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (VINSE) summer REU site will offer STEM undergraduate students the opportunity to work closely with faculty on forefront research projects in the field of nanoscale science and engineering. VINSE faculty will provide REU students with a true interdisciplinary research experience in an environment where physicists, chemists, biologists, and all engineers collaboratively solve problems and create new scientific understanding.