The award provides funds to establish a National Science Foundation "Research Experiences for Undergraduate" site in southeast Wisconsin. Eight highly qualified undergraduates will be recruited to conduct research, at the Biomedical Research Institute laboratories on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha. Based upon extensive experiences with undergraduate research together with active research programs, faculty representing the focus of Molecular and Regulatory Biology will serve as potential project supervisors. This program is designed to develop each participant's intellectual confidence, technical competence and research independence via 1. Guidance and daily nurturing by active researchers in the areas of Molecular and Regulatory Biology whose primary emphasis is working with undergraduates. 2. A program of specific goals for each student's research progress via a meeting and seminar schedule plus instruction in literature search and seminar presentation techniques complementary to each project including faculty-led discussions of relevant, current literature. 3. Leveraging of the NSF effort through a commitment to support additional students each summer and/or to carry over meritorious students for a second summer of research using internal funding. 4. Aggressive regional and in some cases national recruitment of superior candidates with special efforts to attract underrepresented groups plus housing arrangements proximate to the UWP laboratories, and, 5. Immediate and long-term evaluation of the NSF-REU experience.
