Designing Materials in a Virtual Laboratory

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in Computational Materials Science

This REU program will not be offered in summer 2012. The current website contains archival information on the past offerings of the program.

The program was offered in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Participants in this ten-week summer program were introduced to the ever-growing field of computational materials science through a research experience in an active research group at one of the four leading public universities in the state of Florida. Several academic disciplines, including physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and materials science, were represented from the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, and Florida State University.
 

Each REU student was incorporated into a research group and had a faculty advisor and a graduate student mentor. The research was performed in a virtual environment through the use of computing clusters and involved a range of simulation methods in areas such as nanoscience, biomaterials, and surface science. Students learned to work with the state of the art computational hardware and software and to collaborate in a cyberspace environment.

The program began with a a two-day workshop at the University of Florida introducing computational materials science and its methods. At the end of the summer, the students presented their results at the Annual Meeting of the Florida Society for Materials Simulation (FSMS).

Continuing research beyond the summer program was uniquely facilitated by the virtual laboratory and was encouraged by the faculty advisors. Research reports and presentations of the REU participants are available here.
 

For more information, please contact Prof. Dmitry Kopelevich.