Research Experiences For Undergraduates Site Research Articles

Student mental health during Summer 2022 research experiences for undergraduates (REUs): Mentorship, remote engagement, and COVID-19

Objective: We examined how mentorship, remote participation, and COVID-19 challenges were associated with the mental health of college students participating in summer research programs. Participants: Participants were students participating in 78 National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) Sites during Summer 2022 (n = 516 students). Methods: We used multivariable generalized estimating equations that account for clustering by REU Site. Results: Students with more competent mentors had reduced depression severity. Students who spent ≥25% of their time doing remote research or ≥25% of their time in remote meetings and workshops had greater depression severity. Remote research was also associated with anxiety severity. Having a COVID-19 challenge that impacted students’ research experience was associated with increases in depression and anxiety severity. Conclusions: Results suggest potential interventions: implement strategies to boost mentor competency and scaffold a support system into summer research programs to enhance student wellbeing. Additional research on remote engagement is needed.

Preparing a Diverse Future Workforce in Marine and Fisheries Science: The NOAA Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center (LMRCSC) was established in 2001 as a multi-institutional collaborative program with the goal of preparing a diverse future STEM workforce in marine and fisheries sciences. Using best practices for recruiting, mentoring, and training students, the Center has had a significant impact on the number of individuals from underrepresented groups earning degrees in NOAA-related sciences. From 2001 to 2022, the LMRCSC recruited and trained 1,092 students (516 BS, 241 MS, 89 PhD, and 246 non-degree students), and graduated 630 (401 BS/BA, 173 MS/MA, 56 PhD) students. About 77% of the graduates belong to underrepresented groups. Of the LMRCSC graduates, 41 work for NOAA or NOAA contractors. Since 2016, 67 graduate students have taken part in internships at NOAA Laboratories across the United States. Institutional capacities built using NOAA funds have enabled Historically Black Colleges and Universities collaborating with the Center to leverage funds to develop several programs, including a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in marine and estuarine science. The NOAA LMRCSC has become a model collaborative educational partnership that should be replicated elsewhere to enhance diversity in STEM disciplines, particularly the geosciences.

NSF GEO REU Program Coordinators Show Adaptability and Resiliency During the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many undergraduate internships, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, were canceled or moved online. Although several studies have examined student success during the online transition, less research has examined how REU programs have changed from this experience, the ongoing and novel challenges, and strategies that program coordinators employed to overcome them. To investigate this gap, REU site programs were surveyed in the NSF Geosciences (GEO) Directorate, with findings that many students declined participation after having been accepted into programs, and that there were difficulties accessing institutional support services and meeting changing student needs. Despite these challenges, nearly all respondents reported program satisfaction, with several indicating the importance of GEO REU community support. Overall, REU coordinator resilience appears to be a major factor in program success.

The Relationship Between Perceived Confidence, Gender, and Writing in a Biomedical Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates Site.

Women frequently feel alienated in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) environments due to gender biases, ultimately leading them to feel less competent or leave the field altogether. This study utilizes personal statements from a subset of participants from a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site: Biomedical Engineering in Simulations, Imaging, and Modeling (BME-SIM) to investigate how confidence is shown by participants and how confidence is perceived by faculty reviewers in personal statements. This study compares feedback from faculty reviewers to perceived and self-reported confidence using lexical (i.e., word choices and use) and syntactic (i.e., structures of language segments such as sentences, phrases, and organization of words) features of these personal statements. Women received more negative feedback related to confidence compared to their male counterparts, notably in relation to modesty. Few differences were found between writing styles of genders in their pre- and post-program statements. Overall, writing styles did not seem to correlate with the genders' perceived or self-reported confidence; however, perception of confidence suggested a relationship between genders' pre- and post-program statements when examined by noun and adjective variation. A similar relationship was found between self-reported confidence and noun variation in men and women participants. Findings suggest that writing style perceptions and practices may be influenced by gender norms; however, without looking at the specific diction and content of personal statements, these conclusions cannot be fully established.

Learning to Become Researchers: Lessons Learned from a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program Focused on Research in the Psychological Sciences with Real-World Implications

This research study at a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates site focuses on psychological research with applications to the real world. Two cohorts of undergraduates engaged in rigorous research projects on, e.g., driving, homeland security, relationships, human-computer interaction, language comprehension and production, discrimination, and health psychology. Results indicated that students and mentors perceived an improvement in the students' research skills.

A Six-Year Review of the Biomedical Engineering in Simulations, Imaging, and Modeling Undergraduate Research Experience.

Undergraduate research continues to serve as an effective strategy for mitigating the effects of a leaky pipeline. Significant funding from institutions and government agencies has increased the number of students participating in undergraduate research. In this paper, we report on the six-year experience of a National Science Foundation funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site: Biomedical Engineering in Simulations, Imaging, and Modeling (BME-SIM). The operation and evaluation of the program are both described. We report on the results from 55 students over six summers from 2014 to 2019. Our program was successful in attracting a diverse group of participants including 46% under-represented minority students and 53% women. Based on evaluation results, students reported significant gains in technical skills, communication skills, and knowledge of graduate school. Our findings indicate baseline gender differences for several learning outcomes, where women and nonbinary students report lower levels of mastery. These gaps are closed by the end of the program except for confidence in skills, which is still significantly lower than those reported by male counterparts. The impact of the experience on ultimate career path is difficult to determine due to underlying biases and other motivating factors; however, 67.6% of graduates have entered graduate programs. Finally, we have provided lessons learned for those who are interested in building a summer research program. In conclusion, we have described the successful implementation of an REU site and the positive learning outcomes of the student participants.

Lessons and recommendations from three decades as an NSF REU site: A call for systems-based assessment.

For more than 30 years, the US National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program has supported thousands of undergraduate researchers annually and provides many students with their first research experiences in field ecology or evolution. REUs embed students in scientific communities where they apprentice with experienced researchers, build networks with their peers, and help students understand research cultures and how to work within them. REUs are thought to provide formative experiences for developing researchers that differ from experiences in a college classrooms, laboratories, or field trips. REU assessments have improved through time but they are largely ungrounded in educational theory. Thus, evaluation of long‐term impacts of REUs remains limited and best practices for using REUs to enhance student learning are repeatedly re‐invented. We describe how one sociocultural learning framework, cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT), could be used to guide data collection to characterize the effects of REU programs on participant's learning in an educationally meaningful context. CHAT embodies a systems approach to assessment that accounts for social and cultural factors that influence learning. We illustrate how CHAT has guided assessment of the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology (HF‐SRPE), one of the longest‐running REU sites in the United States. Characterizing HF‐SRPE using CHAT helped formalize thoughts and language for the program evaluation, reflect on potential barriers to success, identify assessment priorities, and revealed important oversights in data collection.

Model for improved undergraduate training in translational conservation science

The “Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Biodiversity Conservation” project models transdisciplinary training in conservation science, and particularly in the emerging field of conservation paleobiology (CPB), which applies geohistorical records (e.g., sediments, fossils) and approaches to solve conservation problems. We analyzed recent funding patterns in the National Science Foundation REU program (Biological Sciences and Geosciences directorates) and found that, at most REU sites, undergraduates conduct individual projects supervised by a mentor. In contrast, at the REU in Biodiversity Conservation Site, students from geology, biology, archaeology, and environmental sciences worked in transdisciplinary teams on conservation‐related research using fossil, archaeological, and modern samples. The project successfully incorporated CPB approaches and taught research and soft skills useful in conservation; 85% of students subsequently pursued STEM graduate study or employment. However, because translational science partnerships with conservation practitioners were not sought, the research‐implementation gap remained. We propose a new model for REU sites involving conservation practitioners and stakeholders as partners in research that includes the human dimension and meets community needs, resulting in transdisciplinary, team‐focused training that yields actionable results. We recommend that the National Science Foundation encourage researchers to think beyond typical one‐on‐one mentorship when planning an REU, especially for conservation science projects.

Simulations, Imaging, and Modeling: A Unique Theme for an Undergraduate Research Program in Biomechanics.

As the reliance on computational models to inform experiments and evaluate medical devices grows, the demand for students with modeling experience will grow. In this paper, we report on the 3-yr experience of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) based on the theme simulations, imaging, and modeling in biomechanics. While directly applicable to REU sites, our findings also apply to those creating other types of summer undergraduate research programs. The objective of the paper is to examine if a theme of simulations, imaging, and modeling will improve students' understanding of the important topic of modeling, provide an overall positive research experience, and provide an interdisciplinary experience. The structure of the program and the evaluation plan are described. We report on the results from 25 students over three summers from 2014 to 2016. Overall, students reported significant gains in the knowledge of modeling, research process, and graduate school based on self-reported mastery levels and open-ended qualitative responses. This theme provides students with a skill set that is adaptable to other applications illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of modeling in biomechanics. Another advantage is that students may also be able to continue working on their project following the summer experience through network connections. In conclusion, we have described the successful implementation of the theme simulation, imaging, and modeling for an REU site and the overall positive response of the student participants.

The Importance of Scientific Publishing: Teaching an Undergraduate How to Swim the Entire Length of the Pool

The Importance of Scientific Publishing: Teaching an Undergraduate How to Swim the Entire Length of the Pool

A Summer Research Experience in Robotics

The Robotics Program at Oregon State University has beenrunning an NSF-funded summer Research Experiences forUndergraduates (REU) site since 2014. Over twenty studentsper year (on average) have participated in the site, spendingten weeks embedded in the OSU Robotics Program. Our mainfocus with this REU Site is to give the participants a com-plete research experience, from problem definition to the fi-nal presentation of results, "in miniature". Our secondary ed-ucational objectives are: 1) Teach basic non-technical skillsneeded for graduate work, such as time management and lit-erature review, 2) Provide details on how to apply to gradu-ate school and for funding, 3) Clarify what we look for in agraduate student, and 4) Detail what to expect from the grad-uate student experience. In this paper, we describe the over-all structure of the participants’ summer experience, outlinesome of the training materials that we use, describe the moti-vations for our approach, and discuss the lessons that we havelearned after running the program for a number of years.

REU Site: Bio-Grid Initiatives for interdisciplinary research and education

Recently more and more universities have been incorporating HPC (High Performance Computing) in their computing curriculum. The Bio-Grid REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) Site offers undergraduate students interested or experienced in HPC a summer research opportunity to participate in projects that apply HPC in various life-science disciplines. The projects are associated with the Bio-Grid Initiatives conducted at the University of Connecticut. Training seminars are designed to equip students with background knowledge such as basic parallel programming, large-scale data analytics, and middleware support, etc., as well as some ongoing projects using these computing methods. Students participate in several collaborative projects supported by a campus-wide computational and data grid. The REU project introduces such interdisciplinary research work to students in the early stage of their academic career to spark their interest. The project aims at preparing future software engineers to formalize and solve emerging life-science problems, as well as life-science researchers with a strong background in high-performance computing. The Bio-Grid REU Site was supported by the National Science Foundation from 08–10 and 12–14, with a website located at http://biogrid.engr.uconn.edu/REU.

Tracking Student Participants From A REU Site With NAE Grand Challenges As The Common Theme

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenges provides the theme for this NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site. Research topics, with their broad societal impact, allow undergraduate students from multiple engineering disciplines and computer science to work together on exciting and critical problems. The approach to addressing the need for research in critical technical areas includes: providing research training in multi-disciplinary research fields; developing technical and professional skills; networking with fellow REU students and participating faculty advisors; and raising student interest and awareness in both graduate studies and our nation’s most critical problems. The Grand Challenges investigated by student participants include: making solar energy economical; providing access to clean water; advancing health informatics; securing cyberspace; restoring and improving urban infrastructure; engineering the tools of scientific discovery; engineering better medicines; and advancing personalized learning. Over a three-year period, 34 students participated in the REU Site and 58.8% were students underrepresented in engineering. The student participants published their work and gave presentations in regional and national conferences. Several graduate students gained leadership experience by assisting in program coordination. Based on surveys, overall, student participants value most the opportunity to contribute to a research group on exciting and relevant problems. Tracking efforts resulted in locating 100% of the student participants. We found 38.2% completed their undergraduate degrees and now have positions in industry; 38.2% are currently in graduate school and 8.8% have completed their graduate degrees; 14.7% are still pursuing engineering or computer science undergraduate degrees.

Multidisciplinary "Boot Camp" Training in Cellular Bioengineering to Accelerate Research Immersion for REU Participants

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) sites widely serve as the first major research gateway for undergraduates seeking a structured research experience. Given their lack of prior re search skills, and the highly compressed duration of the REU programs, these students frequently encounter barriers to a seamless transition into a new laboratory environment. We hypothesized that the design of a unified short course on laboratory and analysis techniques could serve as a pivotal orientation experience. Our goal was to rapidly align student expertise to their summer research goals while also integrating the student participants into a cohesive learning community. This article discusses the design and outcomes of a Cellular Bioengineering Boot Camp, which is offered at the outset of the 10-week REU site at Rutgers. The Boot Camp provides hands-on, supervised training for techniques and procedures that are common among projects. The training establishes a com mon language and baseline for the REU students and allows their first laboratory experiences to be with each other, and creates an immediate network of peers and mentors. Surveys before and after the Boot Camp and at the end of the summer indicated a significant improvement in student proficiency in the techniques that was retained throughout the summer. We believe that the Boot Camp approach can be tailored to the specifics of each REU site and its associated projects and research foci.

Cooperative Behaviour in Theory and Practice: Leading Undergraduate Research in Behaviour Mathematical Biology

The US National Science Foundation has promoted the early integration of undergraduate students into academic research environments by funding activities such as the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs. Here, we discuss the operation of the first year for one REU site held on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Eight students from across the country were brought together for a 10-week summer programme in mathematical biology to work on research topics related to the establishment of cooperative behaviour. The students were paired in four teams, which approached the dynamic tension between cooperation and defection from a variety of mathematical and contextual perspectives. Two projects employed agent-based models on lattice environments: the first consisting of sparse populations of mobile individuals and the second featuring age-structured populations, history-dependent fitness, and the possibility of kinship recognition. A third project looked at the evolutionary dynamics of behavioural frequencies in a model of society comprised of three social strata. The final project focused on the ecological range distribution of non-cooperative, cooperative and kleptoparasitic populations in heterogeneous resource environments. We describe both the general results of the students’ research efforts and our observations on the efficacy of several enrichment activities provided to the students over the course of the REU summer.

Cooperative behaviour in theory and practice: leading undergraduate research in behaviour mathematical biology

The US National Science Foundation has promoted the early integration of undergraduate students into academic research environments by funding activities such as the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs. Here, we discuss the operation of the first year for one REU site held on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Eight students from across the country were brought together for a 10-week summer programme in mathematical biology to work on research topics related to the establishment of cooperative behaviour. The students were paired in four teams, which approached the dynamic tension between cooperation and defection from a variety of mathematical and contextual perspectives. Two projects employed agent-based models on lattice environments: the first consisting of sparse populations of mobile individuals and the second featuring age-structured populations, history-dependent fitness, and the possibility of kinship recognition. A third project looked at the evolutio...

Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Renewable Energy

ABSTRACTDuring summers 2009 and 2010, the Renewable Energy Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (REMRSEC) at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) successfully piloted a 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program that addressed fundamental materials issues related to the science and technology of renewable energy. In January 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded CSM a three-year grant to establish an REU Site that will strengthen our recruiting of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in research. This paper describes the features of these pilot programs and outlines the nature of our 2011 REU.

Undergraduate program focuses on international issues in water resources

For the past two summers, faculty from the University of Notre Dame, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of New Mexico have directed a U.S.National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site focusing on issues in international water resources. (See REU Site on Water Resources in Developing Countries, www.nd.edu/~reuwater/). The overarching objective of this project is to engage and educate U.S. students in the issues and problems facing the world's nations in water resource development and potable water supply.The stated goals of the REU program are to expand student participation in all areas of research, and specifically, to attract a diverse group of students into the fields of science and engineering, including graduate‐level studies. In addition, international REU sites often seek to develop students who can be “globally competent;” that is, understand science and engineering in frameworks other than a North American perspective. (More information on international REU sites and site development can be found at www.nsftokyo.org/ and www.nsf.gov/sbe/int/.)

Undergraduate Summer Research in Structural Engineering

For the last seven years, a summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in structural engineering, funded by the National Science Foundation, has operated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During this time, 33 students from 22 colleges and universities have participated in the site. Participants are recruited nationally and have come from as far away as California and Puerto Rico. The program is intended to provide students interested in graduate studies with an introduction to research methods, and to provide students who will not continue their studies past a bachelor of science in civil engineering with a better understanding of how research provides the theoretical foundation of engineering practice. Students work individually with faculty on literature reviews, computer modeling, laboratory testing, and field research. Three students have researched structural failure case studies and the technical and ethical lessons to be learned from them. Participants also have the opportunity to tour construction sites and construction material manufacturers’ and fabricators’ facilities. During the past three years, an ethics seminar series has been added. At the end of the program, students prepare research papers and Web pages documenting their work and present their results to faculty, students, and other participants.

$12 million for undergrad science

The National Science Foundation is addressing the need to attract talented young people to fields of science, mathematics and engineering in its Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. The Fiscal Year 1988 allocation of $12 million supports about 3000 undergraduate students; $5 million of that went to create 140 new REU sites where about 1200 students are doing research. Most awards are $35,000–45,000.