University of Oregon and the National Science Foundation sponsor a 10 week summer undergraduate research program for Physics and Chemistry majors to participate in a wide variety of exciting research projects. It’s not all work, however. Having local and regional adventures are a vital component of the program.
The Oregon REU program offers a variety of research projects for students interested in chemistry, physics, environmental chemistry, optics and materials science. Students work closely with faculty advisors, graduate students, and other research undergraduates for a unique summer experience.
This REU program provides a cutting edge interdisciplinary research experience supplanted with career building and mentoring activities that provide training and practice in the transferable skills that are so essential for success in the next stage of education, and/or employment. In addition to weekly research seminars given by participating faculty, throughout the summer, weekly brown-bag lunches on career building topics indicated below are given. These short courses are an outgrowth of the COACh career development workshops for students, faculty and researchers that Dr. Richmond has helped create and conduct across the country.
- Career Launch and Acceleration
- Persuasive Scientific Presentations
- The Power of Persuasion
- The Art of Effective Negotiation
- Publishing Research Results in Peer Reviewed Journals
- Preparing for Graduate School
Along with the skills learned through research and these workshops, each student is individually coached and guided towards an effective, professional research talk in order to improve their speaking and presentation skills. At the end of the 10-week program, students summarize their projects and present to the group about the research they’ve conducted.
PI Info
The program was started in 1987 by Dr. Richmond and is the longest running REU program in the United States. In the 30+ years of our REU program we have hosted over 350 undergraduates from across the country with 90% continuing onto graduate school.
In November 2021, Dr. Richmond was appointed as the Under Secretary of Science & Innovation, US Department of Energy and Dr. Michael Haley took over as PI.
Dr. Haley is the Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry and has been at the UO since 1993. He served as Head of the Department from 2008 to 2014. Haley is a well-recognized expert in the synthesis and study of aromatic and carbon-rich hydrocarbons with potential applications in materials science. He has co-authored over 230 research articles (papers, reviews, book chapters) and published most of these studies in some of the most respected chemistry journals (Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Nature Chemistry, Chem, etc.). Haley was recognized for his innovative hydrocarbon research with the 2021 American Chemical Society George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry. When not on campus, he can often be found on the mountain snowboarding, on the river kayaking, in the back yard tending his fruit and vegetable gardens, or in the kitchen cooking, usually with wine glass in hand.
Geraldine (Geri) Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon. Her research using laser spectroscopy and computational methods focusses on understanding the chemistry and physics that occurs at complex interfaces that have relevance to important problems in energy production, environmental remediation and atmospheric chemistry. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) , the American Physical Society (APS) and the Association for Women in Science. Awards for her scientific accomplishments include the ACS Olin-Garvan Medal, the Spiers Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the ACS Joel H. Hildebrand Award in Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Liquids and the APS Davisson-Germer Prize. She is the co- founder and Director of COACh, a grass-roots organization that has helped in the career advancement of thousands of scientists and engineers in the U.S., Asia, Africa and Latin America. Awards for these efforts include the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering Mentoring, the ACS Award for Encouraging Women in the Chemical Sciences, the Council on Chemical Research Diversity Award and the ACS Charles L. Parsons Award. Richmond has served on numerous national and international advisory and editorial boards. She served for many years on the U.S. National Science Board, an independent policy advisory board to the U.S. President and Congress on science and engineering research and education issues. In 2015 she was appointed U.S. Science Envoy for the Lower Mekong River countries and served as President for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2015-2016. In 2021 she was appointed Undersecretary of Science in the Department of Energy by President Biden and assumed those duties on November 2021.