Undergraduate Experience
Five students participated in the NCI-SW Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program during the summer of 2016. They were selected from a group of well qualified applicants with the aim of addressing one of the NCI-SW’s goals to recruit and retain a diverse population.
Three of the five students are Native Americans from the Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, NM. They worked as a team on a collaborative project between the Solar Power Lab and the ASU NanoFab to investigate processing techniques to improve the performance of silicon solar cells. Upon the completion of their project, they presented their results in a poster session at the Workshop on Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells and Modules: Materials and Processes held in Vail, CO.
The other two are female students from Scottsdale Community College, AZ. They worked on a project that explored techniques to build low-cost biosensors for disease detection. This effort required an interdisciplinary approach that utilized different aspects of engineering and biochemistry. The team’s findings provided valuable information for this feasibility study.
Teacher Experience
In 2016, there was only one participant in NCI-SW’s Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program. He is a faculty member from Scottsdale Community College, the same school for 2 of the REU students. He also worked on a biotechnology related project that investigated the use of 3-D printing, in close proximity to those students.
This cohort approach is viewed as a potentially more effective way of bringing a research culture and new curriculum topics back to the participants’ home institutions.