REU Site: Advancing Sustainable Systems and Environmental Technologies to Serve Humanity (ASSETs to Serve Humanity)

Clarkson University, Potsdam NY

Investigators

Abstract

This new three-year Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program, Advancing Sustainable Systems and Environmental Technologies to Serve Humanity (ASSETs to Serve Humanity) will build upon an 18 year history of successful REU Site programs in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Clarkson University. The program will offer a diverse cohort of undergraduate students the opportunity to engage in research to advance multidisciplinary approaches needed to address national emerging issues of energy supply and environmental quality. Achieving environmental sustainability and resilience to changing global conditions requires technological advancement produced by globally-competent engineers and scientists capable of adapting to the challenges of environmental, social, and cultural change. This program will advance multidisciplinary approaches needed to address national emerging issues of energy supply and environmental quality. Twenty faculty members from ten departments in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, and humanities will provide integrated sustainability education, graduate training, and hands-on interdisciplinary research opportunities that spark the imaginations of young minds towards production of a STEM workforce of future engineers and actionable leaders on environmental sustainability. Clarkson's Institute for a Sustainable Environment will host 10 REU students over a 10-week summer program where they will be immersed in a broad array of projects led by accomplished and dedicated faculty mentors who will ensure meaningful experiences for all REU participants. Undergraduate researchers will work with graduate students and faculty mentors, participate in research group meetings, present their work at a University-wide undergraduate research symposium, write a final report, and be encouraged to publish their work with their mentor in peer-reviewed publications. Program objectives are designed to widen educational pathways towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, to serve traditionally underrepresented students and students from institutions with limited research opportunities, to develop engineers and scientists prepared to meet future challenges, and to teach students to effectively communicate scientific research to shape effective policy. Environmental leadership is promoted through professional development activities and transformative research in sustainable and resilient energy and infrastructure, sensing, identifying, and mitigating emerging pollutants and other risks, and transformation of social policy and behaviors related to infrastructure, energy, and the environment. Through this high degree of research dissemination, participants in the REU Site program at Clarkson University drive technological innovation needed to maintain public well-being in a more crowded and resource-limited world, and to improve the economic competitiveness of the United States.