A long-standing honors program for 30 on-campus undergraduates has been successfully integrated with the NSF-REU site program. The combined program has increased the total number of student participants and provided resources for the recruitment of off- campus participants. Continuation of the REU site permits the program to serve broadly as a state and regional Center for summer undergraduate research. The specific goals of this activity are to provide in-depth research experience, guide talented students towards a research career, expose participants to a variety of research, topics, and increase the ability of the students to communicate research plans and results. Research projects include: (1) supercooled liquid metal films for high resolution scanning, tunneling microscopy, (2) growth measurements on single cells, (3) bilayer film characterization of polymer blending systems, and (4) effect of gene amplification in the rate of biocatalysis.
