University of Maryland Eastern Shore REU in Marine and Estuarine Science

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This REU Site award to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, located in Princess Anne, MD, will support the training of 8 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2018- 2020. The scientific focus of the REU program is on marine and estuarine science, particularly the ecology of coastal rivers, lagoons and estuaries in Maryland. Students will have opportunities to work in various research areas such as the population dynamics of fish and macroinvertebrates, marine microbiology and parasitology, molecular biology and genetics, marine botany, environmental chemistry, and ecotoxicology. Students will participate in workshops and seminars to teach them how to design field and laboratory research projects, collect and analyze data, and effectively present their results orally, in poster form, and in writing. They will receive training on ethics/responsible conduct of research, and complete surveys to enable us to assess the program. Students will also go on field trips to familiarize themselves with the environment as well as the conservation and restoration projects in the Delmarva Peninsula. Recruitment will target rising sophomores and rising juniors, particularly those belonging to underrepresented minority groups. Completed on-line application forms will be reviewed, and students are selected based on their cumulative GPA ( 2.7 on a 4.0 maximum scale), interest in marine and environmental science, and strength of their letters of recommendation.It is anticipated that a total of 24 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be trained in the program. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. 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 the training program. Students will be tracked after the program in order to determine their career paths. Students will be asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information about the program is available by visiting http://www.umes.edu/reu, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Paulinus Chigbu at pchigbu@umes.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Margaret Sexton at masexton@umes.edu). This Site is supported by the Divisions of Biological Infrastructure in the Biological Sciences Directorate and the Oceanic Sciences in the Geosciences Directorate.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.