This Chemistry Division award supports a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site at Clemson University for the summers of 2005-2007. The program director is Luis Echegoyen who is assisted by co-PI Lourdes Echegoyen. Nine students, recruited from other institutions, will participate in a ten-week program. Students are recruited nationwide with emphasis on the ten-state region surrounding Clemson where a large number of institutions are HBCUs. In addition, special recruiting efforts target Puerto Rican institutions with a new initiative to recruit from 2-year technical colleges in the vicinity of Clemson. Students will participate in group activities aimed at enriching their research experience and at fostering student-student and faculty-student interactions. These activities include a preliminary research presentation, instrumentation workshops, informational lunch seminars and a visit to the R & D facilities at a local industry. The research experience culminates in a final symposium at which students present the results of their work in a poster format. Ultimately, the program is intended to encourage and successfully prepare participants to continue studies at the graduate level and to lead them to a successful scientific and teaching career.
