REU Site: Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (Chem-SURF) Program at UCI

About This Grant

The Chem-SURF program at the University of California, Irvine, is a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site funded by the NSF Division of Chemistry. Chem-SURF supports eight students for 9 weeks of undergraduate research during the summers of 2025-2027. The purpose of this REU site is to bring together a group of talented students from different backgrounds to develop collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills, as well as learn experimental and computational techniques in chemistry. The Chem-SURF program prepares students to pursue graduate education and to become leaders in the chemical sciences and related STEM disciplines and will solidify their identities as scientists. It will accomplish this by emphasizing faculty-student interactions; quality mentorship from faculty, graduate students and peer-mentors; supportive community; and hands-on research training in a large selection of chemistry research projects. Chem-SURF provides participants an opportunity to interact with mentors and peers in both professional and social environments that have been designed to increase students’ chemistry knowledge, research skills, and identities as scientists. The students participate in exciting and transformative research in laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment and with support of campus-wide research facilities. Students are mentored by faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students in laboratories conducting chemistry research in a wide variety of specializations. They also attend professional development workshops and seminars, including ethics training, graduate school and fellowship application preparation, and communication skills. REU students interact with other on-campus summer research programs and graduate school preparation programs during shared and crossover activities including conferences, seminars, and symposia. Students leave the program well-prepared to present their results at scientific meetings and to continue on to graduate study. This site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.