A Research Experiences for Undergraduates site for New Directions in Chemical Engineering is designed for ten undergraduate students at Purdue. The students will receive a ten week research experience in three major areas of chemical engineering: 1) polymers and materials; 2) adsorption science and engineering; and 3) process systems engineering. Students will be recruited from a variety of colleges and universities - particularly from smaller midwestern colleges that do not have major research programs and with an emphasis on historically underrepresented groups. Student projects will be managed to provide a balanced experience in which they will be exposed to and work with tools and techniques at the forefront of modern engineering research. The students will have direct and frequent contact with both faculty and graduate students. They will participate in weekly research seminars, prepare written reports describing the methodologies, results, and conclusions of their projects, and give oral presentations of their work in a colloquium at the end of the project. The students' future progress and professional plans will be monitored and analyzed to suggest optimal ways to enlarge the pool of research- oriented undergraduates for advanced studies and industrial research and development.
