A REU program is designed to provide significant research experience undergraduate engineering students in agricultural and food engineering. Objectives are to: 1. Promote student growth in competence, confidence, and self- esteem by managing a research project. 2. Enhance student written and oral communication skills through research presentations. 3. Interest students in research careers by having them join a working research group in agricultural or food engineering. Women and minority students will be recruited with the assistance of established offices at Iowa State University. Students selected for participation will select a topic area and then be placed in a research group where a faculty associate will assist them in defining a research problem. Once defined in a proposal, each student will carry out a project, and then present results in a written report and oral presentations. The report will be refined by the student and subsequently entered in national paper competition. Example research projects involve groundwater quality monitoring, agricultural hazard and accident reduction, moisture changes in soybeans prior to harvest, and automated whole-grain composition testing.
