This award supports a new Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site at Boston University. The site will support eight undergraduate students per summer for ten weeks of research in various topics in physics. The program aims to give students at a critical point in their education meaningful research experiences grounded in physics but with strong links to other physical sciences, including electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering, materials science, and chemistry. The specific components will include 1) research experience working in groups with peers and senior scientists on specific projects; 2) instruction in the culture, methods, and ethics of scientific research; and 3) preparation for a future career in which they will be interacting with colleagues coming from a wide range of backgrounds: intellectual, educational, geographical and cultural. In addition, the program will be linked to BU's internal Undergraduate Research Opportunities (UROP) program so that the REU students will be members of a larger community of student researchers.
The core of the participants' experience will be mentored research within individual research groups. The groups' interests span the range of research in academic physics: from particle physics to biophysics to condensed matter and materials physics to optical physics and photonics. The faculty leading these individual research groups are distinguished scholars at various stages of their careers but all have experience mentoring undergraduates. Carefully structured plenary activities will complement the individual research experiences and provide the students with an understanding of the need for teamwork and interdisciplinary awareness in their future careers. This award is funded through The Division of Physics and the Division of Materials Research in NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
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.
