REU Site: Analyze This: Analytical Chemistry Applied to Interdisciplinary Research

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This REU site award to Purdue University, located West Lafayette, IN, supports the training of 8 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2020-2022. At this REU site, funded by the Division of Chemistry in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, students participate in chemical science research projects specializing in analytical chemistry. While the research focus is on analytical chemistry, project topics range from environmental chemistry to cancer research, chemical data science to analytical instrumentation. Alongside research, students take part in a robust professional development program that covers topics like chemical health and safety, ethics in the sciences, scientific writing and presentation, resume building, and graduate school preparation. Students also learn about "The Business of Chemistry" through a series of informal discussion with faculty who have used their chemical innovations to form start-up companies.Analytical chemical analysis remains one of the most desired skills in the chemical industries, so this site provides students a hands-on opportunity to develop these skills in a variety of different contexts. Some of these projects include instrumentation development; the integration of molecular modeling, experiment, and machine learning for the development of chemical probes; studying the biogeochemistry of nitrogen cycling in environmental systems; and DNA assembly into pre-designed nanostructures. The students are engaged in a variety of professional development seminars and workshops, with unique series on technology transfer from the lab to start-up companies. This site is committed to broadening participation in chemistry, and while it is open to all, it also recruits underrepresented minority students from minority serving institutions. Ultimately, participants gain an understanding of what is required to succeed in a career in chemistry through individual research, teamwork, and outreach.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.