It is critical in our society to expand research opportunities to students in academic institutions where research and advanced interdisciplinary studies do not exist. The broader impact of this project is to create a pipeline of such students. By interfacing the REU students with TUteach mentors (pre-service STEM teacher candidates) and summer high school students (who will also be at Temple University during the summer), the project will instill a culture where students at any level can help and inspire other students, and learn how to explain complex topics/problems at a more easily understood level. The students participating in this project will be working on problems that are of fundamental scientific and technological interest, and will advance the state of knowledge in areas such as energy storage and conversion, plasmonics and nanomaterials. Faculty mentors have been selected based on their significant contribution to these fields, as partially measured by their citation impact.
objectives of the project are to immerse 10 undergraduate students each summer in an exciting and broad range of materials research in areas that will have enormous societal and environmental impacts. The project will interest the students in pursuing careers in areas such as energy storage, nanomaterials and catalysis. The students targeted for recruitment are those from two year undergraduate institutions who will eventually pursue 4 year degrees, but who will otherwise be at a big disadvantage compared with their peers at research universities. The project will aim to show the students that research or teaching in STEM fields is an interesting and rewarding career path for them, and that they can contribute to developing a future with a cleaner environment, and one that minimizes energy consumption. The project will be interdisciplinary, combining faculty from the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Engineering. In addition, the project will form cohorts (along with other undergraduate summer students at Temple) of students who will work together on interdisciplinary project that integrate experimental and theory/modeling research. This will not only necessitate the development of communication skills, but is also the way in which many complex problems must be investigated. The activities for the students are designed to (i) give broad overviews of selected topics, e.g. 'Why must batteries be improved?', 'What is an oxygen evolution catalyst?', 'What are molecular simulations?' (via brown bag lunches); (ii) introduce students to the ethics and language of science, i.e. how to write papers and give presentations (via a weekly structured course); (iii) show what information from state-of-the-art instruments can provide (via Temple Materials Institute workshop); (iv) give the students practice and confidence in presenting their own research and also in asking questions to each other and faculty members (via presentations of their research). All activities are timely, as many deal with today's common energy challenges.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
