Read more
This book disseminates information about successful Chemistry Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs.
About the author
Dr. Mark A. Griep is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a biochemist who joined UNL in 1990 and has since published over 40 peer-reviewed papers, most of them about the structure/activity relationships of bacterial DNA replication enzymes but especially about primase, the enzyme that initiates DNA synthesis. In 2017, he was awarded the ACS Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach for raising awareness
about Dr. Rachel Lloyd and for using movies to teach chemical concepts. Lloyd was the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry, and who then became a professor at the University of Nebraska. Griep's movie project began as an entertaining and informational outreach activity that he now uses in his classroom. He
wrote the book ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies (Oxford University Press) with his artist wife and he currently manages a Facebook page with the same title (although it lacks the exclamation point). Griep is collaborating with
Nebraska Indian Community College and Little Priest Tribal College to develop a two-semester chemistry sequence that connects the chemistry laboratory experiences to tribal community topics.
Dr. Linette M. Watkins is a Professor and Department Head of Chemistry and Biochemistry at James Madison University. She came to JMU after spending seventeen years as a faculty member at Texas State University. She is actively engaged in promoting early involvement in undergraduate research, engaging twoyear college students in research opportunities, and using undergraduate research as a tool for the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in the chemical
sciences. She has mentored over 100 undergraduate students in bacterial enzyme research, including several from local two-year colleges. Dr. Watkins was a 2006 NSF Senior Discovery Corps Fellow, supporting a collaborative research community between Texas State and San Antonio College. She was named a 2014 American Chemical
Society
Fellow in part for her advocacy on behalf of diversity and inclusion as a former chair of the ACS Committee on Minority Affairs, the ACS Scholars, and the ACS Women Chemists of Color program.
Summary
This book was conceived as a way to disseminate information about successful NSF-sponsored Chemistry Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Sites. Eleven chapters describe specific REU sites and one chapter describes the Chemistry REU Leadership Group. The authors have shared the expertise they acquired from a broad range of approaches, multi-disciplinary collaborations, and multi-institutional collaborations. Each author contributes distinctive and partially
overlapping perspectives into the complex factors that result in running a successful summer research program. Half of the authors participated in a symposium titled "Best Practices for Chemistry REU Programs" at the spring 2017 national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Each described
their program's distinctive features in the context of their overall summer experience, such as the integration of deaf and hearing impaired, coordination of an international program, and multi-institutional programs. The other half of the authors participated in one of the symposia hosted by the Chemistry REU Leadership Group at spring ACS national meetings between 2013 and 2016. Each of these symposia focused on a different aspect of successful REU programs. These authors describe excellent
models for professional development and mentor training workshops among many others. This book hopes to provide undergraduate research advisors at universities across the nation with information they need to design more thoughtful and beneficial college undergraduate research programs for their
majors, and to provide investigators with useful information to write more effective proposals that will fund more summer research programs.
