REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Chemistry at Western Washington University

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site award to Western Washington University, located in Bellingham, WA, supports the training of 8 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2023-2025. In this program, funded by the Division of Chemistry, participants pursue research projects in the fields of biochemistry, synthetic chemistry, or materials chemistry. Recruitment efforts for participants are focused on students from underrepresented identities in STEM fields, specifically from community colleges and four-year institutions with limited research opportunities. This program therefore facilitates the transition to a four-year university for many of the students. Participants also take part in weekly professional development training seminars, engage in several excursions around Western Washington, and present a poster at an REU symposium during the program. Since 2011, this REU site has actively broadened participation in STEM by providing experiences for students who otherwise may not have access to chemistry research. Participants undertake research projects encompassing a broad range of fields in chemistry. These include projects that develop silk-based biomaterials, synthesize natural products for improved therapeutic uses, design plasmonic nanoparticles or polymer-semiconductor nanocrystal composites, and investigate new catalytic materials for sustainable fuels. Other projects include protein biochemistry, structural biology, and computational biology studies on intrinsically disordered proteins, bacterial sortases, and proteins critical for blood coagulation and other signaling pathways. Several of these projects are collaborative, and involve multiple research labs in the chemistry department. Participants also attend weekly professional development seminars, including how to conduct research and maintain a lab notebook, communicate scientifically, and initiate their careers in chemistry. There are several formal and informal activities for participants, and a strong emphasis is placed on building community. The culmination of the summer program is a symposium that celebrates the participants’ research and includes keynote speakers from each of the three main research areas (biochemistry, synthetic chemistry, materials chemistry). 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.