This REU Site award to Princeton University will support the training of 10 students for 9 weeks at the Princeton, NJ, campus during summers of 2017-2019, and 10 students for 10 weeks at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Nové Hrady, Czech Republic, during summers of 2018-2020. The award is supported by the Divisions of Biological Infrastructure (BIO) and Chemistry (MPS), and the Office of International Science and Engineering. The program offers cross-disciplinary research experience in biology to students with backgrounds in chemistry, engineering, computer science, mathematics, or physics. Freshmen and sophomores from colleges with limited research opportunities including community colleges are encouraged to apply. Students in or beyond their third undergraduate year are not the program's priority, and those majoring in biology should strongly justify how their background in physical or mathematical sciences prepares them for the program. Student interests are matched to available research projects of participating faculty mentors. Regular lunch meetings explore topics including scientific ethics, presentation skills, and career opportunities. Participants prepare a written report on their research in the style of a journal manuscript, and present an oral summary in a final symposium. Participants who complete a summer's research in biophysics at Princeton or at similar REU programs are eligible for the research experience in the Czech Republic. Participants are trained in molecular and computational biophysics, and sometimes continue computational research projects at their home institutions.
A total of 60 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities, will be supported in the program. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Travel, housing, and stipend are provided by the program.
A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU Site programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure is used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. Students are tracked after the program to determine their career paths and asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information and applications are available at http://chemists.princeton.edu/reumolbiophysics/ or from the program assistant (Kuri Chacko chacko@princeton.edu), the Program Director (Professor Jannette Carey jcarey@princeton.edu), or the co-Director (Dr. Istvan Pelczer ipelczer@princeton.edu).
