REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Chemistry at Western Washington University

这个本科生研究经验（REU）网站奖授予位于华盛顿州贝灵汉的西华盛顿大学，支持在2023-2025年夏季对8名学生进行为期10周的培训。该项目由化学学部资助，参与者从事生物化学、合成化学或材料化学领域的研究项目。招募参与者的工作重点是来自STEM领域代表性不足的学生，特别是来自社区大学和四年制大学的学生，他们的研究机会有限。因此，这个项目有助于许多学生过渡到四年制大学。参与者还参加每周的专业发展培训研讨会，在华盛顿西部进行几次短途旅行，并在项目期间在REU研讨会上展示海报。自2011年以来，这个REU网站通过为那些可能无法接触化学研究的学生提供经验，积极扩大了STEM的参与。参与者承担的研究项目涵盖了广泛的化学领域。这些项目包括开发基于丝绸的生物材料，合成用于改善治疗用途的天然产物，设计等离子体纳米粒子或聚合物-半导体纳米晶体复合材料，以及研究用于可持续燃料的新催化材料。其他项目包括蛋白质生物化学、结构生物学和计算生物学，研究内在无序蛋白质、细菌分选酶和对血液凝固和其他信号通路至关重要的蛋白质。其中一些项目是合作的，涉及化学系的多个研究实验室。参与者还参加每周的专业发展研讨会，包括如何进行研究和维护实验室笔记本，科学交流，以及开始他们的化学职业生涯。有几个正式和非正式的活动为参与者，并强调建立社区。夏季项目的高潮是一个研讨会，庆祝参与者的研究，并包括来自三个主要研究领域（生物化学，合成化学，材料化学）的主题演讲。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site award to Western Washington University, located in Bellingham, WA, supports the training of 8 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2023-2025. In this program, funded by the Division of Chemistry, participants pursue research projects in the fields of biochemistry, synthetic chemistry, or materials chemistry. Recruitment efforts for participants are focused on students from underrepresented identities in STEM fields, specifically from community colleges and four-year institutions with limited research opportunities. This program therefore facilitates the transition to a four-year university for many of the students. Participants also take part in weekly professional development training seminars, engage in several excursions around Western Washington, and present a poster at an REU symposium during the program. Since 2011, this REU site has actively broadened participation in STEM by providing experiences for students who otherwise may not have access to chemistry research. Participants undertake research projects encompassing a broad range of fields in chemistry. These include projects that develop silk-based biomaterials, synthesize natural products for improved therapeutic uses, design plasmonic nanoparticles or polymer-semiconductor nanocrystal composites, and investigate new catalytic materials for sustainable fuels. Other projects include protein biochemistry, structural biology, and computational biology studies on intrinsically disordered proteins, bacterial sortases, and proteins critical for blood coagulation and other signaling pathways. Several of these projects are collaborative, and involve multiple research labs in the chemistry department. Participants also attend weekly professional development seminars, including how to conduct research and maintain a lab notebook, communicate scientifically, and initiate their careers in chemistry. There are several formal and informal activities for participants, and a strong emphasis is placed on building community. The culmination of the summer program is a symposium that celebrates the participants’ research and includes keynote speakers from each of the three main research areas (biochemistry, synthetic chemistry, materials chemistry).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.