Research Experience for Undergraduates kick-off event

Wayne State's only active Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program starts this week with a kick-off event on Thursday, Jun. 7 at 12 noon.

This program, funded by the National Science Foundation, gives undergraduates a great opportunity to do cutting-edge research in Astro, particle and nuclear physics. The student participants work with faculty mentors on research projects at WSU, or at a premier national lab, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL.

Students participate in weekly seminars, workshops, and field trips. They are given the opportunity to experience a real-life research environment and to contribute to ongoing research projects lead by the faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The recently-renewed NSF grant PHY-1156651 provides funding for 10 students from universities all over the United States. The REU started as a local program, mainly drawing students from Wayne State, but now receives students from as far as Arizona, Alabama, and Florida. In over ten years of existence of this program, students from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, and many other U.S. universities came to Detroit in the summer to work with Wayne State's faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy to tackle problems in theoretical and experimental particle and nuclear physics, and in astrophysics. Indeed, local Wayne State students are active participants in this program as well.

PI Prof. Alexey A Petrov (Program Director) and Co-PI, Prof. David Cinabro, will co-lead this program for the next three years.