Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

2025 PROGRAM DATES: 
Tuesday, June 3, 2025  thru Friday, August 8, 2025

NSF funds a large number of research opportunities for undergraduate students through its REU Sites program. An REU Site consists of a group of ten or so undergraduates who work in the research programs of the host institution. Each student is associated with a specific research project, where he/she works closely with the faculty and other researchers. Students are granted stipends and, in many cases, assistance with housing and travel. Undergraduate students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions. An REU Site may be at either a US or foreign location.

By using the web page, Search for an REU Site, you may examine opportunities in the subject areas supported by various NSF units. Also, you may search by keywords to identify sites in particular research areas or with certain features, such as a particular location.

Students must contact the individual sites for information and application materials. NSF does not have application materials and does not select student participants. A contact person and contact information is listed for each site. (Ref.  https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/ )

PARADIM, the Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials, is a national user facility at Cornell dedicated to the discovery and fabrication of materials with unprecedented properties that do not exist in nature. The Cornell Facilities include a top national Electron Microscopy facility, Theory and Simulation facility and Thin Film Growth/Study facility.  Each year we invite selected interns interested in not only growing new materials targeted by PARADIM users, but also in optimizing and improving the techniques used to grow, characterize, and provide theoretical guidance leading to their discovery and optimization. Molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and MOCVD (metal-organic chemical vapor deposition) are state-of-the-art thin film growth techniques with atomic precision, and we have unique systems with world class capability. Electronic and structural properties are characterized at PARADIM using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).  In addition, PARADIM includes the Bulk Crystal Growth facility at Johns Hopkins.  Together with the thin film growth facilities at Cornell, it provides unprecedented capabilities for discovery of new materials and interfaces.The PARADIM Bulk Crystal Growth Facility is the only facility within the United States where all major optical FZ techniques are available at a single site. In addition, it is the first location in the world to have optical floating zone capability at 300 atm.

The PARADIM REU Program is designed to give undergraduate students an introductory research experience in the growth, structural/electrical characterization, or use of first-principles theory relevant to thin films of transition metal oxides or chalcogenides currently being researched as next generation electronic materials within PARADIM. These projects include improving the techniques available within PARADIM to grow and characterize materials. Students selected will work on an independent research project using the advanced resources available in PARADIM facility labs and the facilities of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR).  

Projects are scaled to be challenging yet achievable within the program’s  time frame. The program runs early June through mid-August. This introduction to a scientific research career will culminate with a convocation held jointly with the REU students from the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF) where each intern will give a final presentation. Interns also write a two-page report, due on at the end of the program, that will be posted on the PARADIM website.

 Video:

REU projects descriptions (2016-2024)               

REU participants (2016-2024)

2025 REU research projects

Program locations: (LINKS)

     

2025 PROGRAM DATES: 
Tuesday, June 3, 2025  thru Friday, August 8, 2025

 

APPLICATION

2025 PARADIM REU APPLICATION DEADLINES

ONLINE APPLICATION DEADLINE: 
Friday, February 2, 2025 (5:00 p.m. Pacific, 8:00 p.m. Eastern)
ONLINE RECOMMENDATION DEADLINE: 
Friday, February 9, 2025 (5:00 p.m. Pacific, 8:00 p.m. Eastern)
ALL APPLICATION MATERIALS DEADLINE: 
Friday, February 23, 2025 (5:00 p.m. Eastern)
AWARD PROCESS BEGINS: 
Monday, March 10, 2025 (via Email)

FINAL DECISION:
Wednesday, April 4, 2025

               

Questions? Contact: James Overhiser, PARADIM Education and Outreach Director [email]   jlo34@cornell.edu

 

   National Science Foundation (REU Site: Summer Research Program at PARADIM) under Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-2150446