2025 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Work during REU

Presentation Opportunities

          As part of the academic growth for the REU participants, a strong emphasis will be placed on teaching the students how to give research presentations both orally and through a poster presentation.  During the weekly lunch meetings the students will have a variety of discussions on resume preparation, how to write scientific papers, and how to prepare poster presentations.  The students will give a talk about their work during the summer in the last week to the mentors and fellow REU students.  This talk will partly be a preparation for the university wide poster presentation where they will present.  This will be a great opportunity for these REU students to broadcast the work they did to the wider audience and allow them to present to students and faculty throughout all schools at UTD including our Natural Sciences & Mathematics but also including engineers, social scientists, and humanists.

Student-Faculty Interaction

          There is already a strong undergraduate research tradition at UTD with current students. Each mentor has had on average ~20 undergraduate students working in their labs over the past 5 years. Faculty mentors will interact with the program participants daily in their research labs. There will also be a meeting during the weekly lunch series each Friday. Each faculty member will assist students as they prepare their oral and poster presentations. During these interactions, students will develop an appreciation for how science works and what it means to start with an unknown problem and develop solutions for that problem.

Group Participation and Peer Communications

          Social Activities: In addition to the interactions focused on science, the students and their REU mentors will be offered an opportunity to participate in a number of social activities outside of campus to build a stronger connection amongst the participants. These social activities will allow more in-depth and broader interaction and will lead to interactions between people from different research groups.

The REU student will:

• Get trained on safety procedures and learn about possible hazards associated with working in a laboratory
• Participate in the laboratory work under the supervision of a graduate student
• Train on instrumental analysis techniques
• Obtain clean room training for device fabrication
• Prepare a poster presentation that will be presented at the Summer Platform for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) at UTD on Friday, August 1st 2025