REU Site: Research Experiences in Physiology and Neurobiology at UCONN

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This REU site award to the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks each summer during the summers of 2023 to 2025. Undergraduate students from primarily non-PH.D. schools and those who are underrepresented minorites, veterans, and diasbled students will be recruited. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Assessment of the program effectiveness will be determined through the use of the an line tool. Students will be tracked after participation in the program to determine their career paths.Undergraduate participants will examine physiological systems through hands-on research from a molecular to systems level. The research projects are part of a broader examination of Modeling in Physiological Systems, undertaken by labs within departments of Physiology & Neurobiology, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Pharmaceutics. Areas of research include: neurocircuitry underlying motivational processes; chemosensation in insects, vascular morphogenesis, and tumorigenesis. Program goals are to improve the mentoring skills and experience of faculty, deepen institutional relationships with non-Ph.D. granting institutions, enhance recruitment of students with limited research experience, and provide students with an excellent research experience. Participants will learn how to pose research questions, read, and understand research literature, work as part of a research team, devise their own research questions and the means to answer them, and be mentored by faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students. Participants will learn about responsible and ethical conduct of research, graduate program selection and applying. Students present the results of their work at a poster-session at the end of the summer and regional and national meetings. Students will be selected by a committee composed of the PI, co-PI and faculty mentors. Special recruiting focus is on students not typically chosing research careers, under-represented minorities, disabled students, veterans, and first-generation students. Participants will be required to register with the NSF ETAP. More information is available about this program by visiting https://pnbreu.uconn.edu or by contacting the PI (Dr. Crivello @joseph.crivello@uconn.edu) or the co-PI (Dr. Menuz at karen.menuz@uconn.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.