REU Site: Creating research pathways and enhancing diversity through the study of Earth's interior, surface, and climate

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The Dynamic Earth in the 21st Century: Undergraduate research on the evolution of Earth's interior, surface and climate REU Site is a research internship summer program that will bring undergraduate students to Brown University to work with faculty in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. The students will also engage in career development activities through the Leadership Alliance, which is a national consortium comprised of 36 PhD-granting Institutions, Minority-Serving Institutions and private industry dedicated to training and mentoring students from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds for competitive graduate programs and professional research-based careers. A primary goal of this REU Site is to recruit eight students, primarily from underrepresented minority groups, to engage in research in Earth and environmental science. The program will support a different group of students for nine weeks in each of three summers. Research projects will include work on the record and consequences of climate change, the physics of volcanic eruptions, the structure of the Earth's interior inferred from seismic waves, and other fundamental topics in the Earth and environmental sciences. This research experience will help the students to develop skills with critical thinking, research methodologies, scientific writing and oral presentations. Through their research and a range of other activities, students will also gain insight on possible pathways through graduate school and research careers. These activities include a weekly study group, the Leadership Alliance National Symposium, participation in a national science meeting, as well as other professional development and networking events. This project is jointly funded by the Earth Sciences REU program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This REU Site, Dynamic Earth in the 21st Century: Undergraduate research on the evolution of Earth's interior, surface and climate, is a collaborative venture between the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences (DEEPS) at Brown University and the Leadership Alliance. Our goals are to: 1) enable a diverse group of undergraduates from outside of Brown to investigate fundamental processes regulating the evolution of the Earth's interior, surface and climate; 2) help students develop critical research, communication and professional skills, in order to increase their confidence and gain greater understanding of the research process and research careers; and 3) promote student awareness and understanding of graduate school to facilitate transition into competitive graduate programs in Earth science and the broader physical sciences. This REU Site builds on a successful three-year DEEPS-Alliance partnership that engaged 12 diverse undergraduates in innovative research and aided them on their pathways to research careers. The Site will continue to focus on recruiting students from underrepresented minority groups in the geosciences, women, first generation college students, students from lower income households, students who attend schools where STEM research opportunities are limited, and students with disabilities. Research projects will include those that address key questions about paleoclimate changes inferred from marine and lake sediments; ice sheet albedo and its implications for melting; human interactions with atmospheric chemistry; magma chamber properties and their potential for eruption; the determination of igneous rock thermal histories; and the properties of the lithosphere and asthenosphere measured by seismic waves. During three summers, eight student-interns will work for nine weeks with a member of the DEEPS faculty, and will be further supported by their surrounding research team, a weekly study group, and the highly effective professional development and networking programs of the Leadership Alliance, both at Brown and nationally. The students will learn to communicate their work in writing, and through presentations at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium, a research symposium at Brown, and either the Fall American Geophysical Union or the Geological Society of America meetings. This REU Site will synthesize the well-established network of Leadership Alliance minority-serving and undergraduate-focused institutions with DEEPS research opportunities to create a new pool of research-focused, highly qualified scholars for graduate programs in the geosciences. The program will also develop best practices and methodologies for activities at Alliance and DEEPS partner institutions.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.