This three-year REU site program at the University of South Florida will provide ten undergraduate participants each year an opportunity to conduct hands-on research focused on the theme of emerging environmental problems and sustainable solutions in air, soil and water, with a particular emphasis on the Tampa Bay region, a rapidly urbanizing coastal community.
The objectives of this program are: 1) to train participants in the scientific research process; 2) to encourage undergraduate participants to pursue an advanced degree in an environmentally related area of research; 3) to encourage students to consider the ethical aspects surrounding their research and the contribution of the research to sustaining healthy communities; 4) to establish a sustainable mechanism for broadening participation in academic research; and 5) to create a collaborative community committed to mentoring and advising innovative undergraduate experiences that promote and advance faculty research.
Faculty and graduate students will interact with undergraduate participants through individual research projects, weekly research seminars, brown-bag student discussion sessions, a journal club, social and community activities, technical and professional training workshops, and through e-forums.
This REU program will focus recruitment efforts on individuals underrepresented in the sciences and engineering including women, underrepresented minorities, students with disabilities, and students from institutions where research opportunities are limited. Efforts also will be made to recruit students from community colleges and introduce them to the research environment.
The program worked with a total of 34 undergraduate students; two supported by non NSF funds provided by the USF College of Engineering to include Caribbean and Latin American students since they receive in state tuition in Florida. Of the thirty one students supported by NSF, 63% were female and 50% were underrepresented minorities. The thirty four students came from the University of Florida, Clarkson University, SUNY New Paltz, University of South Florida, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, University of Puerto Rico Humacao, University of Georgia, Albany State, Langston University, South Carolina State University, Cornell University, Brown University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Princeton University, Southern Methodist University, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Wake Forest University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Humboldt State University, Johns Hopkins, Florida State University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of the West Indies. Field trips were organized to various sites around the Tampa bay region including the Howard Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment facility, TECO’s CO2 sequestration site, NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility, the MOTE Aquaculture Research Laboratory, ECOFARMS, MOSAIC’s phosphate mine, Polk Power Plant, and the Tampa Bay Desalination plant. Seminar speakers included professor Angela Lindner from the University of Florida, Sharon Hanna-West from the USF College of Business, professor James Mihelcic from the USF College of Engineering, and the 2011 cohort played an integral role in the 2011 Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Education and Research conference which was held at USF and co-chaired by PI Trotz with 426 registered guests, 102 oral presentations and a poster session with 140 posters. A professional development program was integrated into the REU program through workshops on GRE test taking, applying to graduate school, producing a poster, giving a presentation, and applying for fellowships. Each student had to consider ethical issues surrounding his/her research and include that as a part of the final project report. The REU students participated in a USF wide annual summer research symposium where their posters were judged by environmental engineering professionals in the Tampa Bay region. Publications of Faculty (bold) with TIER REU students (with *) & for which best paper awards were given (#) from 2009 to 2013: Ticknor, J.*; ElSayed, O.*; Trotz, M. A.; Cunningham , J. A. (2013) Simplified analysis of chlorinated ethenes in water samples by GC/FID. Environmental Engineering Science: 30(1): 30-37. DOI:10.1089/ees.2012.0101. #Amini, A., Peña, O.*, Lin, A., Kinyua, M., Cunningham, J., Ergas, S. (2013) Phosphorous recovery from anaerobically digested swine waste, 7th Annual International Phosphate Fertilizer & Sulfuric Acid Technology Conference, Clearwater Beach, Florida, June 7 - 8, 2013 #Pena, O.*, Ergas, S.J., Cunningham, J. (2012) Effect of Ammonia and Sodium on Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion, Proc. Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) National Conference 2012, Fort Worth, Texas, November 14-18, 2012. Lin, A., Kinyua, M., Peña, O.*, Cunningham, J., Ergas, S.J. (2013) Energy and Nutrient Recovery from Anaerobically Digested Swine Waste, Water Environment Federation/International Water Association Nutrient Removal and Recovery 2013, Vancouver BC, July 28-31, 2013. Dalrymple, O. K.; Isaacs, W.*; Stefanakosa, E.; Trotz, M. A., Goswami, D. Y . (2011) Lipid vesicles as model membranes in photocatalytic disinfection studies. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry, 221(1): 64-70. DOI: 10.1016/j.jphotochem.2011.04.025 D’Angelo, A.*; Kuravi, S.; Niemann, M.; Goswami , D. Y. Elias Stefanakos, Sesha Srinivasan2. Effect of Nb2O5 on the Hydrogen Storage Characteristics of Li-nMg-B-N-H Complex Hydrides. Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Meta-Engineering: ICEME 2010. 6 pages. www.iiis.org/CDs2010/CD2010IMC/ICEME_2010/PapersPdf/FB001HI.pdf Wright Wendel, H. E.; Pfister, A. E.; Hoyt, A.; Matus, J.*; Mihelcic, J. R. Investigating the Role of Green Space in Mitigating Negative Impacts of Urbanization in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Presented at the 5th International Conference on Social Science Research, September 24th, 2010, New Orleans, LA. www.socialscienceconf.net/prelimsocsciprogram2010.pdf Rodriguez A. M.*; Fox, D.; Alcantar , N. Arsenic removal from water through simple mucilage-based filter" American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2009 National Meeting, November 8-13, 2009, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, Nashville, Tennessee. Araneda, B.*; Trotz, M. A. (2010) Student, community and city working partnerships for the sustainable maintenance of stormwater ponds. SACNAS Annual meeting, October, 2010, Anaheim, CA. 15 The REU-TIER facebook group remains active with 53 members, including all of the past REU students. The group address is www.facebook.com/groups/94946314848 and the TIER website is http://reu-tier.net/.
