REU SITE : Integrative Biology and Ecology of Marine Organisms and Their Environment

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This REU Site Award to the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Labs, in Friday Harbor, WA, will support the training of 12 students for 8 weeks during the summers of 2019-2021. Research focuses on integrative organismal biology of marine organisms, with an emphasis on marine ecology, developmental biology, and comparative biomechanics. Mentors from the Departments of Biology, Oceanography, Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries will be involved. Examples of research projects include biotic and abiotic factors in bull kelp ecology, evolutionary development of tunicates, digestive system specializations of prickleback fishes, biomechanics of burial in sediment in fishes, and evolutionary morphology of fishes using micro-CT scanning and phylogenetic comparative methods. The program includes one on one mentoring as well as group training in cross cutting topics that include ethics in research, statistics, career pathways, bias, and diversity. Applications are encouraged from a diverse group of motivated young scientists and students from institutions with limited opportunities for research. Community college students are especially encouraged to apply. REU participants are selected by mentors and principal investigators based on essays, interest in research, and letters of recommendation. It is anticipated that a total of 36 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be trained in the program. Focus is placed on students from HBCUs and other minority serving schools. Work done by REU students will be presented at national meetings or published in peer-reviewed, open access journals. 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 https://fhl.uw.edu/research/student-financial-aid-for-research/summer-research-internships/, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Adam Summers at fishguy@uw.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Stacy Farina stacy.farina@Howard.edu).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.