This award supports the activities of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site in Flagstaff, Arizona, which will enable eight to ten undergraduate students selected in a national competition to do astronomical research under the mentorship of professional scientists. The research activities will take place in Flagstaff during the summer months. Under the direction of Dr. Kathleen DeGioia Eastwood, the principal investigator, several organizations will be involved in this REU site: Northern Arizona University (NAU), the Lowell Observatory, the astrogeology branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Flagstaff station of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Flagstaff is particularly well-suited as an REU site since it is also the home of the National Undergraduate Research Observatory (NURO), a nation-wide consortium of undergraduate schools dedicated to undergraduate research. Supplementing their research, students will also attend two lecture series related to the science and techniques of astronomy, for which they will receive university credit. REU sites such as the one planned in Flagstaff are important in increasing the technical and scientific skills of the Nation's most talented and motivated undergraduates, and in enabling those students to experience state-of-the-art scientific research before they make their final career decisions.
