The REU program conducted by the Rice Quantum Institute (RQI) brings together a number of students from outside universities as well as from Rice University for a ten-week interdisciplinary summer research program. The focus is to provide undergraduate students, frequently from schools with more limited resources, with a jump start into many aspects of research that cannot easily be learned in classes. The students are exposed to different disciplines by contact with a variety of research groups, organized lab tours, weekly seminars by Rice grad students, and frequent scientific and social interactions with other REU students. Each student will become involved in cutting-edge scientific work by joining an individual research group and working daily with the students, postdocs and faculty supervisor. The members of RQI have strongly overlapping, interdisciplinary research interests that interweave work in chemistry, physics, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, bioengineering, computational and applied mathematics, and civil and environmental engineering. Each project chosen will ideally be challenging for the student, yet still manageable within the 10-week period. Group cohesiveness will be promoted through joint housing, weekly scientific seminars by Rice graduate students, and weekly scientific and social activities. While the students will naturally discuss among themselves the nature of their work and how it is progressing, they will also present brief computer presentations to each other and the PI at midsession. This will solidify their knowledge of each other's progress and projects as well as providing a first experience in scientific presentation. During the last week, students will turn in written reports of their scientific activities, go through exit interviews, and, on the last day of the program, present posters of their work in the annual RQI Summer Research Colloquium alongside undergraduates from Rice and other schools in a session where competitive prizes are awarded. Students will be encouraged to present their results at other conferences. Continual efforts will be made to track the career progress of the participants in the years after their participation. The site is co-funded by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program and by the NSF Physics and Chemistry Divisions.
