REU Site: Intensive Mentored Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Psychology and Neuroscience at an Urban Public College

该项目由SBE理事会的本科生研究经验（REU）站点计划资助。除了整合研究和教育之外，它还具有科学和社会效益。城市大学波士顿学院（BC） REU项目旨在促进科学和更广泛社区的发现，同时通过以下方式促进指导、学习和专业发展：(1)让来自代表性不足群体（主要是女性、少数民族、第一代大学生）的学生参与心理学和神经科学的创新研究；(2)引导学生通过科学过程，从研究问题的产生到结果的交流；(3)让学生参与强调实验室工作的相关性和应用价值的教学；(4)提高学生在研究生院和专业岗位上的竞争力；(5)培养导师，满足学生的培训需求；(6)提升地方初高中教师的研究能力，对学生产生下游正向学习效应。该REU项目还使教职员工能够监督那些可能错过实验室指导和专业发展机会的人才，并有助于培养和提升下一代科学家。BC REU项目的中心（科学）组成部分是一个学期的实验室沉浸，在心理和生物系教师导师的监督下，这将导致一个完整的研究项目。我们强调产生高质量的研究，并将心理学和神经科学理论与数据的设计，执行和解释相结合。我们每年选择10名学生进行指导研究项目，特别是来自纽约大都会地区的少数民族服务，公立两年制和四年制大学的本科生。学生还参加每周的教学：一个侧重于研究方法、数据分析、统计推理和专业问题/职业发展的研讨会，以及一个让学生熟悉科学文献的期刊俱乐部。为了使学生能够解决研究环境中出现的伦理问题，我们以伦理专家的工作为基础，对学生进行关键伦理准则和法规的培训。作为一个顶点体验，学生们将在BC科学研究日展示第一作者的海报，在那里他们根据自己的工作质量和交流发现的能力竞争奖项。我们的许多学生与他们的导师合作，在同行评审的期刊上发表他们的研究结果。我们还举办了数据驱动的导师培训演示和学生导师讨论小组，以促进牢固的师徒关系，增加师徒对话，并进一步激励REU学生追求STEM职业。最后，我们的计划有一个RET（教师研究经验）部分，为初中和高中教师提供课程和指导实验室经验，以提高他们的研究能力，提高当地初中和高中的科学教育水平。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 project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. It has both scientific and societal benefits in addition to integrating research and education. The CUNY Boston College (BC) REU program aims to advance discovery for the scientific and broader communities while promoting mentoring, learning, and professional development by: (1) immersing students from underrepresented groups (primarily women, racial minorities, first-generation college students) in innovative research in psychology and neuroscience; (2) guiding students through the scientific process, from generation of research questions to communication of results; (3) engaging students in didactics that highlight the relevance and applied value of their laboratory work; (4) enhancing students' competitiveness for graduate school and professional positions; (5) training mentors to meet students’ training needs; and (6) boosting the research competence of local middle and high school teachers with downstream positive learning effects for their students. This REU program also enables faculty members to supervise talented individuals who might otherwise miss out on mentored laboratory and professional development opportunities, and contributes to the training and advancement of the next generation of scientists. The central (scientific) component of the BC REU program is a semester-long laboratory immersion, under the supervision of Psychology and Biology Department faculty mentors, which results in a completed research project. We emphasize the generation of high quality research and integration of psychological and neuroscientific theory with the design, execution, and interpretation of data. We select ten students annually for mentored research projects, especially undergraduates from ethnic-minority serving, public two-year and four-year institutions in the New York metropolitan area. Students also attend weekly didactics: a seminar that focuses on research methods, data analysis, statistical reasoning, and professional issues/career development and a journal club that familiarizes students with scientific literature. To enable students to address ethical issues that arise in research environments, we train students in key ethical guidelines and regulations based on the work of ethics experts. As a capstone experience, students present a first-authored poster at the BC Science Research Day, where they compete for awards based on the quality of their work and ability to communicate their findings. Many of our students work with their mentors to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals. We also host a data-driven mentor training presentation and student-mentor discussion panel in order to facilitate strong mentor-mentee relationships, increase mentor-mentee dialogue, and further motivate REU students to pursue STEM careers. Finally, our program has a RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) component, which provides middle and high school teachers with coursework and mentored laboratory experiences to enhance their research proficiency and raise the level of science education in local middle schools and high schools.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.