REU Site: Interdisciplinary Research Training Across Biology, Physics, and Engineering

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This REU Site award to Yale University, located in New Haven, CT, will support the training of 9 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2018-2020. The REU Site focuses on several interdisciplinary research areas, including: A) the physical properties of cellular processes, B) the development of new experimental methods at the interface of physics, engineering, and biology, C) molecular engineering, and D) systems biology. By conducting research in one of these focus areas, and being exposed to the other three, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how interdisciplinary research is conducted and how wet-lab experiments, computer simulations, and theory are combined to make rapid progress in answering grand challenges in biology. Participants will receive mentorship from REU faculty, as well as graduate students and postdocs. In addition to conducting interdisciplinary research in Yale laboratories, undergraduates will also participate in a variety of enrichment activities, such as workships aimed at identifying ethical conflicts faced by scientists and at clarifying the PhD admissions process. This REU Site seeks students with majors in several disciplines, including but not limited to biology, biochemistry, computer science, biomedical engineering, physics, and mathematics.It is anticipated that a total of 27 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be trained in the program. Participants will develop their communication skills and will present their research to a wide range of audiences, learning valuable networking skills, and also participating in science outreach activities to middle and high school students. A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU Site programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure will be used to determine the effectiveness of this training program. Students will be tracked after the program to determine their career paths. Students will be asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information about this REU Site program is available by visiting https://sackler.yale.edu/sackler-nsf-reu-site, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Corey O?Hern at corey.ohern@yale.edu) or the program administrator (Dr. Dorottya Noble at dorottya.noble@yale.edu). This award is supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences (DBI Division) and the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.