REU and RET Site in Physics at UTRGV

The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg TX

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports the renewal of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) site in physics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. The site will support twelve undergraduates and one teacher per year in research projects in gravitational wave detection, lasers and optics, radio and optical astronomy, blue energy, or materials science. The projects can be theoretical, computational, experimental, observational and/or oriented towards applied physics. As the students' research experience grows they will come closer to being independent, self-reliant scientists. The site will incorporate one high school teacher from the Rio Grande Valley area who will develop smaller subprojects to be carried on with their students during the school year. The research projects in this REU and RET site will focus on research in frontier areas of phenomenological, experimental and applied physics at state-of-the-art facilities. The topics offered cover data analysis and gravitational wave detection projects, laser and optics projects from the area of gravitational wave detector instrumentation, radio, optical and X-ray astronomy projects, sustainable energy generation projects and nanoscience and advanced materials science projects. The program will have a close mentoring and guidance system from the faculty in place during the entire duration, fostering interaction and active participation by students and teachers through seminars, lunch meetings, colloquia and presentations. This REU site has research topics for the undergraduates that advance topics that fall within the goals of the Windows on the Universe Big Idea. 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.