REU SIte: Southeastern Undergraduate Internship in Nanotechnology (SUIN)

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

The Southeastern Undergraduate Internship in Nanotechnology (SUIN) offers undergraduate students from the southeastern US, including Puerto Rico, the opportunity to perform cutting-edge research at the forefront of nanoscale science and engineering (NSE). This rapidly developing interdisciplinary field will allow students to see the connections across all science and engineering disciplines and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Research results obtained by the undergraduate participants will help in the advancement of understanding phenomena at the nanoscale and how this information can be used to improve applications in electronics, health, safety, environment, infrastructure (among others) important to our society. Thus, the SUIN program contributes to the pool of scientists and engineers trained in STEM and NSE meeting a national workforce. The internship program will take place at the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology at the Georgia Institute of Technology (IEN/GT), which is a site of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI)and the home of the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC). Students will develop research and communication skills through close interactions with faculty, graduate students, and staff. The program allows students from traditionally under-represented groups to form strong relationships with faculty, mentors, and staff and with each other that will facilitate professional growth and continued education. Professional development offerings will encourage and provide resources for participants to seek advanced degrees. The SUIN REU program will provide thorough training and compelling hands-on research experiences at state-of-the-art nanotechnology facilities (cleanroom, characterization, and assorted labs) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. A large pool of faculty, mentors, and staff, dedicated to engaging undergraduates in research, will provide projects in a broad range of nanotechnology fields with substantial interdisciplinary content (materials, electronics, biology, chemistry, physics, etc.), allowing students from many majors to participate and interact. There are four main goals of the SUIN program: 1. Provide an experiential nanotechnology research project with training on advanced equipment and tools which exposes students to the breadth of NSE research topics; 2. Encourage students to explore and pursue graduate-level research and careers in STEM and NSE; 3. Recruit and provide opportunities for women, minorities, and students from non-research institutions; and 4. Enhance student communication and presentation skills and understanding of ethical issues in scientific research. Undergraduate participants will be safely and quickly trained to use the processes and equipment needed to carry out their research projects. This advanced training will allow them to complete a well-defined nanoscale research project and present the results at the end of program convocation at a NNCI site. The program participants will interact through weekly REU and lab group meetings, as well as with other on campus REUs during professional development offerings and seminars. These interactions will allow all interns to see the breadth of nanoscale science and engineering and its applications across many disciplines. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.