Research Experiences for Undergraduate Students
in the New Jersey Pinelands

 

The new REU site at the Camden campus of Rutgers University invites ten undergraduate students each year to work with faculty mentors of three Departments on research projects of importance for the New Jersey Pinelands. The NJ Pinelands is a unique ecosystem with approximately 1.1 million acres, which has been given International Biosphere status.

Pinelands

Photo courtesy of Michael Hogan

The students will work in close collaboration with their faculty mentors on independent research projects of importance for the New Jersey Pinelands and the students will have the opportunity in the first two weeks of the program to use the lab facilities and to reside in the dormitory at the Pinelands Field station.

The goal of the program is to provide biology and chemistry undergraduate students with the opportunity to experience cutting-edge research over a wide range of various disciplines (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) and emphases (biochemistry, botany, ecology, microbiology, molecular biology, neuroscience, and zoology) to broaden their perspectives on a research career in the academic sciences. This goal will be accomplished via interdisciplinary mentoring, the opportunity to work on independent research projects from experimental design to data collection and analysis, and via different workshops about e.g. scientific writing for peer-reviewed journals, scientific ethics, women in sciences and environmental justice.

Students who are admitted to the program will be supplied with a stipend, housing, meals and airfare. Under-represented minorities and students from colleges with limited research opportunities are particularly encouraged to apply. More information is available by contacting Heike Bücking or Georgia Arbuckle-Keil.