The NSF REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program is designed to provide meaningful research experiences to undergraduates who may not otherwise have the opportunity, with an ultimate goal of increasing matriculation in STEM careers and graduate school.
Most NSF REU programs are designed to pair students attending smaller and undergraduate-only schools with faculty and lab groups at larger host institutions for mentorship and a meaningful research experience.
Importantly, as NSF notes, the inclusion of historically under-represented groups in STEM (minorities, low socio-economic status, first generation students, veterans and women) will serve to broaden the STEM talent pool.
As such, most REU programs in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech host a diverse cohort of approximately ten non-Georgia Tech undergraduates, who have limited research opportunities at their current institution. Each unique program's focus and requirements vary, so check individual program links for application guidelines and deadlines. Each of the six schools in the College of Sciences participate in the eight to 10-week program. The REU supplements — which include stipends, housing, and travel allowances — engage students in research related to a new or ongoing NSF research award. Application deadlines are typically in January and February each year, depending on the program.
“Georgia Tech has had a long, outstanding record of hosting REU students,” said College of Sciences Assistant Dean for Academic Programs Cameron Tyson. “We are delighted that we can offer programs affiliated with each of the six schools in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech.”
Summer 2023 NSF REU programs in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech are:
Aquatic Chemical Ecology (ACE) Summer Research Program
(Co-hosted by the Schools of Biological Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and from the College of Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.)
Students participate in research with one or more faculty, and learn about careers in science and engineering, and see how scientists blend knowledge and skills from physics, chemistry, and biology to investigate some of the most challenging problems in environmental sciences. Three areas of research activities covered by faculty in the Aquatic Chemical Ecology program include biological and geochemical transformations of chemicals in aquatic ecosystems, sensory biology and ecology of aquatic chemical communication, and ecological roles and consequences of chemicals in aquatic environments.
Broadening Participation Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Physics
(Hosted by the School of Physics)
This program includes a hands-on computational workshop, an overnight trip to a National Laboratory, a weekly Physics Frontiers Lunch and Learn seminar series, a half-dozen professional development seminars, and social activities with other REU students. At the end of the summer, participants will present their research to the School of Physics community and at a Georgia Tech REU Poster Symposium that includes REU participants from all the REU programs in the Georgia Tech College of Sciences.
Mathematics Research Experiences for Undergraduates
(Hosted by the School of Mathematics)
REU summer projects in mathematics are mentored by many different faculty, on topics ranging from fad formation, to random walks, tropical geometry, one bit sensing, extremal graph theory, and convex polyhedra. Students will have the opportunities to publish papers, win awards, and succeed in graduate school applications.
Broadening Participation in Atmospheric Science, Oceanography and Geosciences Research
(Hosted by the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences)
Each participant will work with a faculty member or research scientist and focus on a single research project, but will also gain a broad perspective on research in Earth and atmospheric sciences by participating in the dynamic research environment. This interdisciplinary REU program has projects spanning topics related to the geosciences, planetary science, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, and climate science. In addition to full-time research, undergraduate researchers will participate in professional development activities, seminars with faculty and research scientists, presentation and research poster symposiums, and social activities with other summer REU students.
Chemistry Function, Application, Structure and Theory (FAST)
(Hosted by the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
The Chemistry Function, Application, Structure, and Theory (FAST) Program’s objective is to provide a high-quality research experience, augmented by experiential learning components, for a diverse group of undergraduate students. The program will provide participants with encouragement and preparation to pursue advanced studies and/or careers in the sciences while emphasizing the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinarity in chemistry.
Human Neuroscience Research and Techniques
(Hosted by the School of Psychology)
Working with Georgia State University, this program gives students the opportunity to gain knowledge and hands-on experience with human neuroscience techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants will also perform exciting research in the laboratories of Georgia Tech or Georgia State faculty mentors. Students will learn about neuroscience careers and tips for succeeding in graduate and medical school. The research areas of the faculty mentors are organized around three core neuroscience themes: Human Motor Control, Cognitive Processing, and Human Neurophysiology.
“These programs are an excellent opportunity for students, especially those from colleges and universities with limited research opportunities, to gain an immersive experience working alongside Georgia Tech faculty and their team on cutting-edge projects in science and mathematics,” added Tyson, who is also a faculty member in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “We often see participants having a transformative experience and continuing on to graduate studies and pursuing a career in research.”
For more information on REU summer program details, requirements and application deadlines, interested students should visit the links to individual programs listed here.
John McDonald, emeritus professor in the School of Biological Sciences and founding director of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center, has been named one of “Today’s Innovators” in cancer care by the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education (CORE).
McDonald, who also served as the chief scientific officer of the Ovarian Cancer Institute, will be honored during the “Toast to the Trailblazers” event that is part of CORE’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, set for Saturday, February 18 of this year, at the Atlanta History Center.
“For me, it's always an honor — and often a surprise! — when I receive an award, as was the case for this award from the Georgia CORE,” McDonald said. “It's certainly encouraging to know that others believe what I'm doing is worthwhile. At the same time,” he added, “I'm acutely aware that nothing in life, and especially in science, is accomplished in isolation. Whatever I've been able to accomplish is, in large measure, because I have had great students and collaborators to work with over the years here at Georgia Tech.”
Also chosen as a “Today’s Innovator” this year is Lynn Durham, CORE’s president and CEO. Before joining CORE in 2021, Durham served as vice president for Institute Relations at Georgia Tech. Across 25 years on campus, Durham also worked as chief of staff and led the Institute’s legislative advocacy program.
Individuals selected as “Today’s Innovators” by CORE have “embraced the original vision of collaboration and advancement throughout the state’s cancer care ecosystem and are working today to continue to enhance cancer research and exceptional care for all Georgians.”
Durham noted that McDonald was chosen because of his past leadership of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center and his scholarship in ovarian cancer detection and treatment.
“He is the leader of a cancer research center in one of our state’s most respected higher education institutions, and I hope this recognition will demonstrate the important connection between basic science and the remarkable innovations in cancer care during the past 20 years,” Durham added.
McDonald is engaged in translational research, which seeks to quickly move more basic science discoveries into actual practice to help patients. The challenge, McDonald explained, is how to best get those discoveries and technologies into clinical practice. This requires connections between research scientists, clinicians, and appropriate patients. While the scientist/clinician connection is relatively easy to establish at medical schools, it is not as easy for researchers at non-medical schools like Georgia Tech, he added.
“The Georgia CORE was designed to address these challenges by facilitating connections between scientists and clinicians while at the same time providing Georgia citizens access to the latest trials,” McDonald said. “These efforts have been tremendously successful over the last 20 years.
“I have tried to play some role in improving communication and encouraging collaboration among Georgia Tech researchers doing cancer-relevant research,” McDonald added, “by establishing the Integrated Cancer Research Center (ICRC) and connecting our scientists and engineers with clinicians, all with the assistance of the Georgia CORE.”
McDonald became an emeritus professor in January 2023. Now, he’s focused on writing a book, and still working to get discoveries made in his lab into clinical practice. For that effort, McDonald has established startup companies with two colleagues in the School of Biological Sciences, postdoctoral researcher Nick Housley and Jeffrey Skolnick, who serves as Regents' Professor, Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair, and as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology.
“One effort is focused on a drug delivery nanoparticle, and the other is focused on our machine learning-based personalized diagnostic tool,” McDonald said. “Collaboration with Georgia CORE is proving essential in moving both of these projects forward into clinical trials.”
Live via Zoom
Honey bees as models to investigate how environmental stressors shape gut microbial communities
Understanding the mechanisms by which gut symbionts shape host physiology and the consequences of disruptions in such relationships is a relevant and growing area in the field of host microbe interactions. Recently, several lines of evidence have linked healthy gut microbial communities to host metabolism, pathogen resistance, and immune development. My research uses the gut microbiota of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, as an experimental system to understand the routes through which gut communities impact host biology and how environmental stressors compromise these interactions. In this presentation, I discuss the roles of the gut microbiota on honeybee health and how agrochemicals and plant toxins can impact beneficial members of the microbiota and the consequences for host health, such as changes in pathogen susceptibility and immune system regulation.
Host: Dr. Joel Kostka
Event Details
Live via Zoom
How intercellular interactions emerge at the microscale and determine the functionality of microbial communities
Microbial cells operate as part of collectives, engage in interactions and their activity at the microscale influences biogeochemical processes at the global scale ultimately affecting health of plants, humans or animals. Despite the ubiquity of collective behaviors and interactions within microbial assemblages, the emergence and the role of the underlying regulatory mechanisms is poorly understood. My work bridges these knowledge gaps by combining quantitative investigations of microbial growth and behaviour at the level of single cells with comparisons of gene expression. In this talk, I will present three emerging principles on the development of collective behaviours and interactions in microbial communities. I will show that bacterial cells form collectives in order to degrade complex polysaccharides but disperse when simpler oligosaccharides become available in the environment. I will show how the strength of collective behaviors is dependent on the ability of cells to secrete extracellular enzymes that degrade polysaccharides. I will show that bacterial cells that lack polysaccharide degrading enzymes use antagonism systems to lyse neighboring cells and acquire nutrients for growth. Taken together, the findings from my work elucidate how ecological functionality is governed by collective dynamics emerging from intercellular interactions in natural microbial communities. Finally, I will discuss future research that will measure ecological dynamics between species at the microscale, integrate findings across distinct levels of biological organization and map the evolution of functional capabilities in microbial communities. The ultimate goal of my work will be to decipher general principles that explain the role of intercellular interactions in driving the evolution of metabolic, genomic and ecosystem functionalities of microbial communities
Host: Dr. Joel Kostka
Event Details
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RNA editing: innate immunity and human disease
Event Details
Live via Zoom
Transcriptional adaptation couples past experience and future sensory responses
Sensory adaptation allows neurons to minimize responses to persistent or repetitive stimuli, thereby emphasizing novel cues. Traditionally, it is thought that the periphery is a stable messenger of the outside world, while the brain flexibly adapts to changes in the environment. In the olfactory system, olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) in the nose detect odors through odorant receptors and each OSN expresses only one receptor out of >1000 in mice and ~300 in humans. These OSNs have been thought to reliably respond to the same stimuli in the same way irrespective of their experience. By using single cell RNA-sequencing and in vivo calcium imaging, we recently revealed that OSNs adapt to the environment by reconfiguring their transcriptomes over timescales of hours to days. We find that each of the ~1000 receptor-defined mouse OSN subtypes harbors a distinct transcriptome. The content of each subtype-specific transcriptome includes >70 functional genes relevant to converting odor-receptor binding to action potentials, e.g., GPCR signaling factors and ion channels, and is precisely determined by interactions between the expressed odorant receptors and the environment. Critically, we find the patterns of functional gene expression predictably influences future odor responses. This discovery identified a novel form of adaptation and revealed unexpected flexibility in peripheral sensory codes. It also suggests a general model in which transcriptional variation within a single cell type reflects activity history of individual cells and contributes to optimize their functions. I will also briefly discuss about our ongoing work to comprehensively characterize odor representations at the periphery and examine how they are transformed in the brain.
Host: Dr. Patrick McGrath
Event Details
Live via Zoom
Mathematical modeling and genomics of cancer networks: applications to drug resistance and transcriptional reprogramming
How does the intracellular network of cancer cells give rise to the changes in cell state that lead to drug resistance and transcriptional reprogramming? In this talk, I will tell you about how we have tackled this question using approaches from the fields of systems biology (by iterating mathematical models and experiments), mathematical modeling / network theory (by developing computational methods to analyze models), and cancer genomics (by analyzing multi-omic datasets with rich clinical annotations). In particular, I will talk about three projects, one for each of these approaches. In the first, we built and experimentally tested a model of the signaling network underlying resistance to PI3K-alpha inhibitors in breast cancer. In the second, we developed a network theory framework to identify controller nodes in a mathematical model. In the third, we identified genomic and transcriptomic drivers of resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors in metastatic breast cancer. Finally, I will give a brief overview of my proposed research program on leveraging both mathematical modeling and cancer genomics to study drug resistance in breast cancer.
Host: Dr. Greg Gibson
Event Details
Live via Zoom
Understanding the genetics of complex traits through statistical integration of genetic and genomic data
Understanding the genetics of human traits requires data that capture different aspects of the mechanisms. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified variants associated with thousands of traits. Functional genomic data such as transcriptomics can reveal underlying genes and cell types. Integrating different sources of data is crucial for gaining biological insights but poses great challenges for statistical analysis. We developed two statistical methods for integrative analysis of genetic and genomic data. First, I will introduce a new method for integrating GWAS data across many traits. A joint analysis of 116 traits characterized the variation of pleiotropy across the genome and linked it to several functional genomic signatures. Our analysis identified variants with highly trait-specific effects for the first time. Second, I will describe a new method to identify genes that show differential allele-specific expression (ASE) using single-cell RNA-seq data. ASE is a powerful tool to study cis-regulatory effects and can reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying variant-trait associations. Application of this method identified 657 genes that are dynamically regulated during endoderm differentiation. These genes can play an important role in early-life diseases. Finally, I will discuss future directions.
Host: Dr. Greg Gibson
Event Details
Live via Zoom
Animal movement in a changing world
Benjamin Van Doren studies the responses of migratory birds to environmental change. His research spans spatial and population scales and unites ecology, evolution, behavior, and conservation. Dr. Van Doren earned a PhD in Zoology from Oxford University, and he has received achievement awards from the American Ornithological Society, Linnean Society of London, and Zoological Society of London. In this talk, he will focus on how light pollution and human-dominated landscapes influence migrants’ ecology and behavior, and how migratory birds adapt to change via both plasticity and evolution. He will also discuss how new machine learning techniques and modeling approaches are pushing ecology forward while facilitating opportunities for conservation action.
Host: Dr. Mark Hay
Event Details
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Legacies of stress: eco-evolutionary consequences of transgenerational & carryover effects in coastal systems
Phenotypic plasticity is a critical component of organisms’ responses to environmental change. My seminar will focus on a major component of my research program – “legacy effects,” or how past environmental experiences shape organism phenotypes, the mechanisms of these changes, and the consequences for communities and ecosystems. We will explore how parental experience with predators influences fitness and physiology in intertidal snails and how early life exposure to climate change stressors impacts oyster growth and nitrogen storage, a critical ecosystem service. By asking questions across scales, my work reveals new insights into how legacy effects shape patterns and processes in marine systems.
Host: Dr. Mark Hay
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