NON-TECHNICAL PART: This REU Site will provide an umbrella under which seventy-five community college students will participate in a wide array of educational activities that provide a broad view of science and engineering education and career opportunities through materials science perspectives. These activities will include: (1) an innovative lower division course that describes the historical and societal impacts of materials, (2) tours of university materials research labs, (3) identification of a STEM advisor over the duration of the project who will work with each of the seventy-five student participants, (4) meetings with materials scientists and engineers from academia, industry, professional societies, and federal laboratories, (5) training of faculty on mentoring practices, and (6) a competitive process to select thirty-six students for summer research experiences in the laboratories of faculty at nearby research universities. The project has significant potential to attract and retain freshman and sophomore community college students in the STEM disciplines and to facilitate their transfer to a four-year institution to continue their STEM education. The inter-related advising, educational, and research activities will be subject to ongoing evaluation designed to validate, or suggest changes in, the project approach. Recruiting activities will focus on females, veterans, and students from minority groups who are underrepresented in STEM.
TECHNICAL PART: The students who are selected to participate in pairs in a research opportunity in a university materials research laboratory will begin communicating with their research mentors in the spring term in preparation for a ten-week research project during the summer. Research opportunities have been arranged with faculty at research universities in the Houston area. Student projects will include such topics as: (1) polymer-based organic photovoltaics (OPVs) where the student team will fabricate and test polymer-based OPVs and analyze the effect of block copolymer additives on active layer structure and performance, (2) high temperature superconductors where the student team will determine the migration of ternary invariant liquids and the change in composition of other components as the liquid migrates, (3) new epoxy resins where the student team will develop new resins that incorporate sustainable and biodegradable components while maintaining the desirable properties of these epoxy resins, (4) study of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites where the student team will examine FRP composite samples taken from retired lifeboats and characterize the types of environmental damage suffered by these lifeboats, (5) organic polymeric materials where the student team will test the hypothesis that an n-type conjugated redox polymer can simultaneously enable high doping level and high electrical conductivity, and (6) organic compounds that mimic key reactions in photosynthesis where the student team will examine computational methods, using basic concepts in quantum chemistry, statistical physics, and molecular dynamics, to learn about a covalently linked carotenoid-porphrin-C60 compound that has the ability to absorb light and generate charge-separation states that convert solar energy into chemical fuel.
This project fulfills the mutual objectives of the Division of Materials Research and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the NSF Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences and the Advanced Technological Education program of the Division of Undergraduate Education in the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources. Each of these units is providing a significant fraction of the funding.
