This award provides renewed funding for a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at Rutger's University. The program will support ten students during a ten week summer research program. The intellectual focus of the program is provided by access to the LEO-15 ocean observing platform and related technologies. Advances in remote sensing, ocean observatories, autonomous vehicles, numerical modeling, and molecular biology are changing oceanography. The faculty and research facilities at IMCS allow undergraduates to explore these technologies to understand estuarine and costal ecosystems. An initial five-day orientation introduces students to ongoing research, focusing on the continental shelf off New Jersey, the Hudson River/New York Harbor, and the Mullica River/Great Bay systems. The two estuaries provide a sharp contrast in their human impacts on coastal ecosystems. The orientation includes two days at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, with hands-on experience in the coastal LEO-15 research area, and on the Mullica River. The program will include independent research projects by the students, participation in a bi-weekly summer lecture series on topics such as scientific writing, science careers, ethics and data presentation. It will conclude with a written report and student poster presentations. Students will be encouraged to publish in peer-reviewed journals and participate in national conferences following the summer research program.
The site will be supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU Program.
, provided hands-on research experiences for undergraduate students who are interested in marine science. The program ran for ten weeks during the summers of 2008, 2009, and 2010. In total, 33 students from colleges and universities in 17 states around the country participated. Students received a stipend, and their travel and room expenses were covered under the grant. When applying for the program, applicants were provided with descriptions of ongoing research projects by faculty in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers and asked to identify potential mentors. Applicants were screened by a selection committee and ranked on the basis of their undergraduate transcripts, personal statements of their career goals and research interests, letters of reference, and match with a suitable mentor. Mentors can be faculty, postdoctoral researchers, or advanced graduate students. The goal of the program was to provide students with an in-depth research experience. All major phases of conducting research were covered, including writing a proposal describing the planned project and the expected outcome, designing the study, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data, making an oral presentation of the results of the project, and preparing a professional poster. The capstone of the program was a poster session, similar to those held at professional marine science meetings. Posters were judged, and the winner was sent to a national science meeting to present their project. During the course of the program, students also participated in workshops covering various aspects of a career in science, such as responsible conduct of research and how to apply to graduate school.
