REU Site for Ecosystems in Transition:

The Role of Research in Assessing Ecosystem Responses to a Changing Environment:

This program will not be held in 2008.

We hope to resume the program in 2009.

Career Exploration:

Career Opportunities in Ecological Research. The REU students in 2004 and 2005 explored career opportunities in research through both formal sessions and informal interaction with working professionals.

Representatives from the MTU graduate school, the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (SFRES), and the USDA Forest Service research lab on campus will present a workshop on graduate school and career opportunities during the second half of the summer.

After each Case Study discussion, the speakers were available for informal discussions with interested REU students about career opportunities in their field and with their organizations.

The REU students in 2005 attended the 90th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, held in Montreal, Canada, from August 7 - 12. This international meeting will be held jointly with the IX International Congress for Ecology (INTECOL). Topics for this meeting include all aspects of ecological research, with a special focus on evaluating ecological information across scales. The REU students will be able to attend presentations and field trips associated with the meeting and will have the opportunity to meet with numerous researchers from universities, government agencies and private industry.

We also encouraged all of the REU students to present their results at meetings held the spring following their REU summer, such as the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in April or or the Council on Undergraduate Research’s 11^th National Conference, hosted by DePauw University, June 24-27, 2006. REU students attending these meetings will be able to meet representatives of numerous potential employers and graduate programs.

Building Professional Relationships. A network of colleagues is critical for those who hope to stay informed on the latest research findings and techniques and investigate questions that require large, interdisciplinary teams. It is never too early to begin building such relationships, and we will afford the REU students a chance to begin doing so while at MTU. Several specific social gatherings and educational field trips occur during the summer, and informal socials also followed all Case Study sessions. These will gave the students a chance to begin building relationships with their REU peers and with professionals in the scientific community. The professional meetings they attended helped provide further opportunities to develop relationships with peers in science, possibly leading to internships or opportunities for graduate study. To further stress the importance of working with teams of researchers, groups of 2 or 3 students were allowed to develop collaborative, interdisciplinary projects for their independent research, if they could justify the proposed collaboration.

The REU students also participated in the “Return of the Former REU Summer Workshop”, which occurred at MTU as part of an NSF funded research project. This workshop brought former REU Supplement students, trained during the past ten years, back to MTU to help introduce bright undergraduates to the research process. The idea is that there is no better young mentor than a former REU student pursuing a career in science. Current REU Site students would get to meet these former REU students, some of whom are now Assistant Professors, post-docs or well along in their Ph.D. programs. As their careers progress, the REU Site participants might someday be invited back to participate in the mentor portion of this program.