This REU Site award to Duquesne University, located in Pittsburgh, PA, will support the training of 8 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2019-2021. This site will serve as a pilot for a training model with larger interdisciplinary teams with a combination of four students and mentors. Each student will be paired with a mentor based on research interests, and each pair will join another pair to form a team from two near-neighbor disciplines (e.g., nanotechnology and neurogenetics). Students will gain an understanding of the research question from two unique perspectives. Each student will focus on a different aspect of the interdisciplinary project and will produce a unique poster or oral presentation at the final symposium. These interdisciplinary projects are in the areas of protein trafficking on pain sensation and behavior, molecular basis of neuroinflammatory pain, comparative genomics and functional analysis of lipid metabolism, and spatiotemporal dynamics of skin microbiota. Program components include career and ethics/responsible conduct of research training, journal clubs, and community-engagement where students share science activities with middle school students at a summer camp, fostering communication, professional and civic skills. Applicants from underrepresented minorities and/or first-generation university students are especially encouraged to apply.
It is anticipated the program will train a total of 24 primarily underrepresented minority and first-generation college students from schools with limited research opportunities. Students will learn how interdisciplinary research is conducted and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. They will receive mentoring related to research and careers, build a supportive cohort with fellow undergraduate trainees, and engage the public in their research by sharing science with children.
A common web-based assessment tool used by all REU Site programs funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training program. Students will be tracked after the program to determine their career paths. Students will be asked to respond to an automatic email sent via the NSF reporting system. More information is available at www.duq.edu/academics/schools/natural-and-environmental-sciences/undergraduate-research, or by contacting the PI (Dr. O?Donnell, at odonne15@duq.edu) or Co-PI (Dr. Sarah Woodley at woodleys@duq.edu).
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.
