REU Site: Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Environmental and Ecological Sciences (SURFEES)

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Chapman University has been granted funds to run a Research Experience for Undergraduates Site in The Schmid College of Science and Technology. Twelve students selected exclusively from community colleges (and focusing on under-represented minorities, women, and low-income students) will have the opportunity to engage in research projects related to environmental and ecological issues from the molecular to global scale. The program will provide an under-served student population with hands-on, interdisciplinary research experiences and enhance the recruitment/retention of under-represented students into STEM fields. Chapman University will partner with five local community colleges that serve ethnically diverse communities and lack scientific research facilities. Faculty mentors include biologists, chemists, and geoscientists with active undergraduate research labs. In addition to their work in these labs, students will participate in group activities including pre-experience training workshops, seminars by research faculty and environmental organization representatives, group meetings/presentations within their research groups, professional development workshops, a research poster presentation session, and a post-experience evaluation assessment.Southern California is an urbanized area featuring a wide range of environmental and ecological challenges. Addressing these complex issues requires an interdisciplinary and educated workforce of scientists. Through participation in cutting-edge research with faculty mentors working at the forefronts of their disciplines, students will engage in novel scientific studies on topics including the transformation pathways of pollutants, environmental impacts on intertidal organisms, effects of climate change on extreme weather-related events, and carbon sequestration in wetlands. These interactions will provide valuable interdisciplinary research experience to a typically under-served student population and drive the principal investigators' scholarly research forward.