"Making, Modeling, or Measuring Molecules: A Research Experience for Undergraduates"
(NSF RESEARCH EXPERIENCES FOR UNDERGRADUATES PROGRAM)
Proposal Number: 0353856
Description: In the continuation of a successful three year program, the University of Pittsburgh will conduct a summer Research Experiences program for ten weeks each of three summers, for undergraduates and a high school teacher (new component), beginning in June 2004. Ten undergraduates will be recruited each summer, from across the nation and housed in Pitt’s newly organized Research Residence Hall. The high school teacher will be recruited from the Pittsburgh Public School District. Most participants will be full-time undergraduates from institutions other than the host institution and will be selected to represent the diversity of the nation and the diversity of interest in currently important chemistry research topics. In addition to the major effort on an individually designed research project, the participants will engage in a weekly series of Academic Tutorials, presented by scientists within the Department, elsewhere from the University, or practitioners of science within the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area, designed to educate them about relevant issues facing everyone interested in the research community. All participants will also contribute to a cross-campus, cross-discipline Ethics Forum, a city-wide Poster Session, and an end-of-the-summer Oral Symposium. Several social activities, designed to enhance the cohort experience, will be planned by the newly formed Office of Experiential Learning, while opportunities for student-organized events are available.
What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity? Building upon our successful, just-completed 3-year REU grant and the PI’s extensive experience mentoring undergraduates and fostering undergraduate research across the campus, we will continue utilizing all the resources of a major research university to intellectually engage our participants. Each participant will select a unique, faculty-constructed research project from a list of about 25 options that is redefined each year to reflect the dynamic and ever advancing nature of chemistry. The projects available will range in scope from traditional to modern instrument intensive, from single discipline-focused to multi-discipline in flavor, from highly targeted oriented to open-ended projects. Each participant will work on their own project but closely with her or his lab sponsor and additional members (undergraduates, graduate students, and/or post-doctoral fellows) of that research team, to ensure timely answers and advice are available to keep each project moving forward. Each participant will be making unique advancements to our Chemical understanding or utilization, as well as experiencing what a professional career in the Chemical sciences entails, through their own activities as well as through shared experiences of other participants.
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? Close interaction between the participants and their lab sponsors as well as in-lab mentors, on state-of-art chemistry research projects, will provide ample opportunity for personal scientific development under the tutelage of master teachers. Participants see first hand the teaching, training and learning that occurs in a graduate program which they invariably share with their friends, fellow students, and professors when they return to their home institutions. Because the students will be from a variety of institutions, both public and private, from across the nation, ethnographically diverse, and with varied interests, but will be involved in a number of cohort experiences, they will have ample opportunity to exchange experiences, goals, and challenges. To ensure sharing, all research projects have as their challenging goal, publication in a peer-reviewed journal, as well as oral presentations to the scientific community via submitted and invited talks and posters that the participating faculty do, routinely and often
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