This award from the Division of Chemistry (CHE) and the EPSCoR Office at the National Science Foundation supports a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site led by Professors Aleeta M. Powe and Craig Grapperhaus at the University of Louisville. The research projects supported in this site are in broad areas of chemistry and structural biology. Undergraduates will be recruited to this site primarily from institutions that lack infrastructure to support undergraduate research, including students from underrepresented groups. The site will support the selected students each summer in a ten-week program. Faculty mentors are divided into two groups based upon their research foci, namely chemistry of life processes, measurement and imaging, chemical catalysis, and synthesis. Weekly enrichment seminars focus on laboratory safety, laboratory techniques, scientific communication, scientific ethics and scientific career options. To stress synergism and collegiality among the group, REU students engage in weekly interactive activities led by faculty mentors of the two groups. Weekly activities include team-building exercises, diversity/mentoring workshops, field trips and several informational workshops, namely, Constructing a Bibliography, Writing an Abstract and Preparing a Research Poster. A technical writing component ensures interactive peer critique, mentor/mentee dialogue and student comprehension of scientific writing. REU participants present their research results at the end of the summer in a campus-wide symposium featuring posters that display their progress and findings. Collectively, these organized activities provide REU Participants the training and professional development to pursue research careers or graduate degrees in the chemistry sciences. Young scientists need exposure to modern research methods and tools as part of their training. This REU site aims to provide research training using state-of-the-art facilities in a broad range of topics in the chemical sciences. Undergraduate researchers participating in this site will have significant, hands-on access to sophisticated research tools. The diverse student cohort participating in research at this site will be well prepared for graduate school, and eventual employment as part of the country's technical workforce.
The Program is designed to give research opportunities to undergraduate students who are from underrepresented groups in the sciences and/or first-generation college students. Although advertisement and marketing for the REU site will be nationwide, targeted recruitment will be facilitated via partnerships with several regional Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and numerous undergraduate institutions with limited research resources in the states of Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Indiana and Kentucky.
