This award provides an additional three years of continuing support to the Department of Biology at Hope College to carry on with the Research Experience for Undergraduates Site that was established in 1988. The program will provide ten undergraduate students with an in-depth summer experience in research in environmental biology. In order to provide research opportunities to individuals who are not well represented in science, the department will recruit women and members of minority groups to participate in the program with the goal of having at least 50% of the student participants being women and 50% being members of minority groups. Five students from Hope College and five students from other schools will be selected for participation on the basis of academic record, research ability and potential, initiative, independence and professional objectives. Students will select a research project from five different areas related to environmental biology: 1) Molecular Biology of Nitrogen Fixation, 2) Environmental Biochemistry and Physiology, 3) Genetic Toxicology, 4) Plant and Animal Parasitology and 5) Ecology and Systematics and will work under the supervision of twelve Ph.D faculty members. Students will perform independent research projects, give oral presentations on their work in progress, attend workshops on graduate school and scientific writing, attend special scientific seminars and prepare a research poster and research paper summarizing their work.
