i-REU: The US/France Exchange Program in Chemistry: Forming Global Scientists for the 21st Century

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Professors Valeria Kleiman, Adrian Roitberg, and colleagues at the University of Florida host the United States/France exchange for undergraduate research experiences in chemistry. This site is cofunded by the REU Sites Program of the Division of Chemistry and the Office of International Science and Engineering. The site promotes the progress of science supporting the international education of undergraduate students from the US. The emphasis of the exchange is to provide each student with a meaningful international summer research project in Chemistry in French laboratories. Internationalization of science is an imperative in order to create a diverse and culturally-aware STEM work-force. Those participating in international science benefit from increased visibility, funding and career advances and those participating in a global research environment learn to think outside the box. In addition, these are life-changing experiences where students become global citizens and learn to interact with scientists with different backgrounds who teach and mentor them in chemistry. To complement the research environment, the intellectual value of the program is enhanced by the cohort activities where students learn to disseminate their discoveries and become global scientists. This program acts as a true exchange, where students from France also come to the US to perform research during the time of the program. Participants are assigned in groups of two or more at each of the three French sites (Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg). They are matched with available host groups according to their previous experience. Research topics cover broad areas of the chemistry field and include the bottom up structuring and patterning of materials; the design, synthesis, and characterization of supramolecular systems; the characterization of inorganic, organic, and biological solid materials; studies of the anti-inflammatory effects of N-acyl-homoserine lactones on epithelial cells; the controlled synthesis of complex nanoparticles; and the preparation of molecules with potential applications in homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysis.