SUNRISE Summer undergraduate students to showcase their research accomplishments

Wayne Seames

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

7-24-2014

Campus Unit

College of Arts & Sciences

Abstract

Public is encouraged to attend session and to ask participants questions about their projects

The public is invited to attend the 12th annual SUNRISE Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program Poster Session from 11 a.m-1 p.m., on Thursday, July 31st, on the second floor of Harrington Hall on the campus of the University of North Dakota. Light snacks and beverages will be served.

Through this National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded program, SUNRISE faculty in the UND Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Departments mentor undergraduate students from across the U.S. for 10 weeks in their laboratories each summer. The upcoming poster session is the culmination of their summer-long work and gives the students a chance to explain their work to the public in an informal setting. The public can help them out by attending the poster session so that they can explain what they have been doing and why it is important for North Dakota, the U.S. and the world.

This year, the program has 14 participants: seven in chemistry and seven in chemical engineering. The participants come from South Dakota State University, Wagner College, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Dickson State University and UND. In addition to their research, the students attended a series of activities designed to introduce them to graduate school, research methods, safety practices, and ethical conduct. The group also visited the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Center and the UND Energy & Environmental Research Center.

The SUNRISE REU program is funded by the NSF with supplemental funding provided through the DakotaBioCon EPSCoR project, the EPSCoR Aura program, and the UND School of Graduate Studies. The principal investigators of this program are Evguenii Kozliak, UND professor of chemistry, and Wayne Seames, UND professor of chemical engineering. The poster session coordinator is Yun Ji, UND assistant professor of chemical engineering.

SUNRISE stands for the Sustainable Energy Research and Supporting Education Initiative. Founded in 2004, SUNRISE is a student-centered, faculty-led research program at UND, North Dakota State, and other North Dakota universities and colleges. The mission of SUNRISE is to conduct research that contributes to solving complex energy-related problems, investigate the development of sustainable energy options and spur economic development and job-creation for North Dakota. The initiative also increases UND and NDSU research competitiveness in sustainable energy, and produces graduates to develop and promote sustainable energy in North Dakota, the region and the nation. All this is done within a unified, interdisciplinary program that translates fundamental research into commercial solutions.

Alena Kubatova, UND associate professor of chemistry, and Marisol Berti, NDSU associate professor of plant sciences, are the co-directors of SUNRISE.

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