This three year REU Site program at Drexel University will engage 10 undergraduate students for 9 weeks in interdisciplinary research in medicine, energy, and advanced manufacturing. The REU students will be part of a multi-institutional team, including a graduate student and faculty mentor from Drexel, a faculty mentor from the participant's home institution, a Drexel freshman from the Students Tackling Advanced Research (STAR) program, and a high school teacher in an NSF funded Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program. Students will also attend weekly seminars on research, education, and ethics, present an educational module on their research to middle school students, visit local industry and national laboratories, and attend social and cultural events. The participants will keep photo journals of their experiences. These journals will enhance and reinforce research and social experiences, and provide a tool for program assessment. At the end of the summer program, participants will present their research results at a poster presentation and will be encouraged to submit their research at professional conferences. After the program, REU participants will be encouraged to remain in contact with their interdisciplinary team through a Facebook group. Travel grants will be provided if students need to use Drexel's facilities to produce additional data that could result in a presentation or publication.
Recruitment efforts will be focused on minorities, women, and underrepresented groups, and those who do not have access to advanced research facilities at their educational institutions. The PIs will recruit from regional institutions such as Delaware State University, Cheney University, Lincoln University, Swarthmore College, West Chester University, Rowan University, Villanova University, Widener University, Community College of Philadelphia, Burlington County College and Camden County College. The PIs have established strong connections with faculty at these institutions. REU students will be encouraged to pursue graduate studies and careers in science and engineering.
"This REU site is co-funded by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program."
The iREU program objectives are:(i) to provide an interdisciplinary research experience to students and their faculty advisors from institutions that donot typically offer research experiences to undergraduate students, with a particular emphasis on under-representedminority groups;(ii) to encourage participants to explore and seek graduate education and research careers in cutting edgeinterdisciplinary science and engineering fields;(iii) to demonstrate to participants the tremendous benefits of interdisciplinary multi-institutional collaborations andteamwork, while providing a taste of the excitement associated with research and discovery and building a sense ofachievement and self-esteem. Over the three year period, the iREU program recruited a total of thirty five highly talented undergraduate students, twenty four of whom were from colleges and universities with small STEM research programs. Each REU student spent nine weeks conducting interdisciplinary research in medicine, energy, and advanced manufacturing as partof multi-institutional, multi-generational teams consisting of: the iREU participant, a graduate student and a faculty mentor, and including other summer program participants, such as Drexel freshmen in the STAR program, and highschool teachers in an NSF-funded Research Experiences for Teachers program. iREU students attended seminars on science communication and research careers, visited local industry and utilities; and had group interactions through mentoring meals and cultural events. This program was specifically designed to address the development of key learning and working skills that will serve participants throughout their careers. These include: research problem identification, critical literature review, and hypothesis development; research plan design and implementation; research techniques, including new methods and/or skills; and results dissemination in both written and oral form. iREU participants worked directly with their interdisciplinary teams on the selected research problem. At the end of the summer program, the iREU students presented their research at a culminating poster session and wrote 'white papers' proposing future research to compete in a mock funding competition. Students were also encouraged to present their research at professional conferences. Exit surveys indicate that the various iREU activities have successfully motivated the participants to pursue graduate degrees in sciences and advanced technology areas upon finishing their undergraduate programs. Although it is too early to evaluate long-term outcomes, we anticipate that the experience these students have gained with STEM research will have a substantial positive impact on their future ability to contribute to the progress of science. Some of the students have already brought their contributions out of the lab by presenting their work as posters at academic conferences and by sharing the benefits of the iREU program with classmates at their home institutions. This program has had a positive broader impact on several groups of individuals. In addition to iREU students, Drexel STAR students and the RET teachers also benefited from their shared research experiences. This is especially important because STAR students are freshmen, and this early exposure to interdisciplinary team-based research can profoundly impact their career choices, while the RET teachers can transmit the excitement of their research experiences back to entire classes of up-and-coming high school students who are just beginning to consider what they would like to do with their lives. Serving as iREU mentors, as panelists in the mentorship forums, and as reviewers for the posters and white papers also provided a unique training experience to graduate student participants, improving their preparation for academic careers. Faculty from Drexel University also benefited immensely from the collaboration and recruitment opportunities offered by contact with these highly talented students and their home school mentors. At the institutional level, the iREU program has postive impact on many activities at Drexel University. A program website, application materials, and a recruitment presentation and brochures were developed for the program. Information about research opportunities was presented at a level useful to student applicants, and Drexel faculty were made aware of the opportunity to participate in the program. Recruitment relationships were established with six local schools: the Community College of Philadelphia, the University of Sciences in Philadelphia, Cheyney University,Villanova University, Swarthmore College, and Burlington Community College. An ongoing collaboration was also established amongst the four REU programs in the Drexel College of Engineering in order to plan a common calendar of joint program events, including a welcome dinner, safety and lab training, mentoring seminars and panel sessions,cultural and engineering-related field trips, a lunch with the Dean of the College of Engineering, and the closing poster session, white paper competition, and BBQ dinner/awards ceremony. Many of these practices have now been institutionalized at Drexel University with their own STAR program (Drexel University's freshman research program).
