REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

The Mountain Research Station of the University of Colorado at Boulder will host 10 students each summer in a 10-week REU program in Behavior, Ecology and Evolution. Our goal is to give students the tools needed to understand and conduct biological research, and to encourage students, particularly those from groups that are under-represented in the professoriate, to pursue graduate degrees in biology and, ultimately, careers in teaching and research in colleges and universities. Recruitment of a culturally diverse group of student participants will be based on interest in the appropriate disciplines of their faculty mentors, career goals, and academic achievement. Students in the program will participate in a one-week intensive orientation to field research and then will work on faculty-mentored individual projects for the remainder of the summer. Faculty mentors are drawn from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, have active research programs, and are committed to mentoring undergraduate students. Student projects may focus on issues such as water quality and community ecology in alpine lakes and streams, biogeochemistry and community ecology of alpine and subalpine terrestrial ecosystems, the evolution of plant adaptations for reproduction and survival in montane environments, the behavioral ecology of social insects and birds, and the evolution of mate choice in fish. We treat our REU students as colleagues, with the expectation that they will join the research community and be able to contribute on an equal footing with graduate students, post-docs, and faculty. We provide background and experience to students who wish to advance their careers in science. The success of our program hinges on having students finish the ten weeks with a full knowledge of the scientific process and with complete confidence in their ability to implement the process. The summer culminates in student presentations of their results in a scientific meeting format. The Mountain Research Station, located at 3000 meters elevation in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, is 45 minutes from the University's Boulder campus. The adjacent Niwot Ridge Biosphere Reserve is home to an NSF-Long Term Ecological Research site. Our participants live in rustic cabins in a camp that is frequented by deer, elk, and other wildlife, but have access to world-class research facilities at the Station and the Boulder campus. For further information and application materials, please contact Prof. Michael breed at michael.breed@colorado.edu, (303) 492-7687, or visit http://www.colorado.edu/eeb/EEBprojects/reu/.