REU Site: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Physics

The Physics Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at Michigan State University (MSU) offers students the opportunity to conduct advanced research in world-class facilities while being directly supervised by faculty who are recognized experts in their discipline. In addition, multi-layered mentoring and professional development are key components of the program. This program consists of a 10-week research experience for 12 REU participants each summer. The main goal of the program is to bring the excitement of forefront physics research to cohorts of undergraduate students, and to foster their development into outstanding scientists by helping them develop professional skills. This REU program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to do forefront research in a field of physics – nuclear, condensed matter, high-energy, astrophysics, biophysics, or physics education. Each student in the program will work on a well-defined research project under the direction of a faculty mentor. Students choose their projects from a list suggested by the faculty, with wide variety of available projects in both experimental and theoretical physics. In nuclear physics, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is located within a few steps of the Physics and Astronomy Department. FRIB is a world-class research, teaching and training center, hosting the most powerful rare isotope accelerator. REU students also have access to state-of-the-art on-campus research facilities such as the Keck Microfabrication Facility, the MSU High Performance Computing Center, the MSU Observatory, the SOAR Telescope Remote Observing center, and numerous single-investigator laboratories in condensed matter physics, biophysics, and physics education. Many faculty participate in international collaborations and have access to data from facilities such as neutrino and cosmic ray observatories and high-energy particle accelerators. The department’s theoretical faculty often collaborate with the local experimental groups which also provides excellent research opportunities for REU students. In addition to the faculty mentors, the REU program provides peer-mentoring, several professional-preparation workshops, including preparation for graduate school, and an optional short course on machine learning. 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. NSF Award ID: 2446884 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Stuart Tessmer | Institution: Michigan State University, EAST LANSING, MI | Award Amount: $380,988 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2446884 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2446884.html