Central Michigan University is a charter member of a collaboration of 10 institutions that worked together to construct a million dollar, high efficiency neutron detector for use at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) is a critical instrument in the study of nuclei far from stability. One of the unique aspects of the collaboration is that many of the members of the collaboration are from primarily undergraduate institutions and the involvement of undergraduate students is fundamental goal of the project. In the MoNA collaboration undergraduate students from Central Michigan University have play integral roles in the construction and operation of MoNA; they have built detector bars, wired electronics, written code, sat shifts, and done both on- and off-line data analysis.
The MoNA collaboration has been remarkably successful at involving undergraduate students in front-line research. This proposal will permit the PI and his undergraduates from Central Michigan University to continue to participate in the experimental program. In addition, the proposal presents a model for not only sustaining the momentum of an active collaboration based on students and faculty from undergraduate departments, but also moves the collaboration to more actively involve undergraduates in all the experimental runs and in data analysis. If these measures are successful, they will provide a prototype for involving undergraduates in cutting-edge experimental physics at user facilities.
