Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

Previous funding came from the National Science Foundation, awards 1359262, 1757477, and 2149957.  Information about NSF sponsored REU projects can be found here.

The accepted students will be involved in mentored-research projects in multidisciplinary education research on student success in STEM. These undergraduate researchers will be part of a vibrant community of education researchers and contribute to publishable research in STEM Education Research.

STEM Education Research is conducted by experts in a scientific field who apply a combination of scientific disciplinary expertise, educational and social-science research methods, and findings from the cognitive and neurosciences to investigate questions about undergraduate learning within a scientific field. The broad goals of this field of research are to:

1. understand how people learn the concepts, practices, and ways of thinking of science,
2. understand the nature and development of expertise in a discipline,
3. identify and measure appropriate learning objectives and instructional approaches that advance students toward those objectives,
4. contribute to the knowledge base in a way that can guide the translation of findings to classroom practice, and
5. identify approaches to make science and engineering education broad and inclusive.

Yes! During the program students will engage in rigorous education research projects with the support and collaboration of research mentors. Through a variety of activities we will build and support students’ research, communication and professional skills to help prepare them for STEM Education Research Ph.D. programs and careers. We will introduce our potential future educators to teaching, learning, and assessment of the core scientific practice of modeling. Students in this program will disseminate their findings at conferences and through scholarly publications. 

• Get ready for your summer research via a (paid) remote “Spring Ahead Into Research” session during Spring 2027

• 9-week residential summer program at RIT’s campus in Rochester, New York

• Work closely with faculty mentors and research groups

• Research methods & professional development workshops

• Final professional presentation at RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium

• Includes $7k stipend, summer housing, and travel support to defray the cost of getting to/from Rochester for the summer

Application period
Opens October 1, 2026
Closes January 27, 2027 (11:59pm ET)

Application
https://etap.nsf.gov/award/8531/opportunity/12034

In your application, you will be asked to discuss the two potential projects that interest you the most. See the section "Examples of Potential Projects” on this site for these sample project descriptions.

You will also need to provide contact information for two letters of recommendation, which will be submitted through the NSF ETAP system.

Eligibility

This opportunity is for undergraduate students interested in STEM Education Research. Applicants must be majoring in a STEM discipline (e.g. Biology) or majoring in Education with a minor in a STEM discipline (e.g. Education major with a math minor).

Applicants must be current undergraduate students who will not graduate before December 1, 2027. Per NSF REU eligibility requirements, applicants must also be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or permanent residents.

Quantum Information Science and Engineering

• Investigating learning materials for introductory quantum information science and engineering (QISE) courses: Many institutions, including RIT, are offering undergraduate courses in QISE with few or no prerequisite courses. This project would study the effectiveness of curricular materials (e.g., tutorials, simulations, quantum games) for the learning of core topics (e.g., superposition, entanglement) and would support the improvement of education materials at RIT and elsewhere.

• Making QISE accessible for a broader range of students: Quantum technologies rely on multiple disciplines (e.g., physics, engineering, computing, materials), but some of the greatest potential impacts of quantum computing are in life science and chemistry. We will study undergraduate students’ perceptions of quantum across a wide range of majors and identify the experiences that can increase interest and affect and those that can minimize trepidation and disinterest.

• Career resources for quantum technology jobs: This project could focus on how students form career interests in different areas, including quantum technology. Another sub-project would support an analysis of interviews and job postings in quantum technology to refine a set of career profiles that are usable by students and educators to plan educational opportunities.

Artificial Intelligence

• Ethical use of AI in STEM Education: This project examines how faculty and students conceptualize the ethics of AI in academic environments. Interviews with faculty and students will explore which ethical concerns are prioritized in different contexts, how participants navigate tensions between competing values, and how differing viewpoints are negotiated in classroom and research collaborations. The project uses a newly developed framework that does not differentiate between research, professional or personal ethics, instead recognizing that values such as honesty, courage, and curiosity manifest in all aspects of one’s life. In this framework, ethical behavior in one context (such as using AI in class) impacts one’s ethical identity in all contexts. Students in this project will interview other students and faculty to explore links between ethical values and choices around AI use. 

• Integrating AI into the Undergraduate STEM Curriculum: This project examines how undergraduate STEM programs navigate the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GenAI) into teaching, learning, research, and curricula while preserving essential disciplinary knowledge and skills. Partnering with three STEM programs, the study will use faculty and student surveys, comparative case studies, and qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate how disciplines define AI fluency, determine appropriate and responsible uses of GenAI, and make collective decisions about curricular change. Students in this project will interview other students and faculty to explore and document the educational change process. 

• Cultivating Competencies for the Future Physics Workforce: A Framework for Modernizing Graduate Education: This project investigates how graduate physics education can be modernized to better prepare physicists for a rapidly evolving scientific workforce shaped by advances in computation, data-intensive research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and artificial intelligence. Using mixed-methods research across multiple institutions and engaging graduate students, faculty, national laboratory scientists, and workforce stakeholders, the project will identify the competencies expected of contemporary physics Ph.D. graduates, examine how effectively current programs cultivate those competencies, and investigate the organizational and cultural conditions that enable sustainable educational change. Students in this project will interview other students and faculty and participate in the survey development process. 

• Investigating Cognitive Load from AI in STEM: As AI tools enter STEM learning, students are using them to solve problems that once required independent reasoning. While integration may boost productivity, impact on deep learning and workforce readiness is unclear. We will investigate how students use AI and, relatedly, how AI affects cognitive load, problem-solving, and conceptual understanding by comparing student performance with/without AI support using cognitive load measures (e.g., PAAS scale) and think-aloud protocols. 

Biotechnology

• Visual Literacy in Biotechnology: The foundations of biotechnology, such as molecular biology, rely on abstract visual representations to communicate concepts that cannot be directly observed. These visuals use context-specific symbols, so visual literacy is essential for understanding and communicating in biology and biotechnology. We explore how students interpret these figures and how their drawings reveal their thinking and misconceptions. We will also develop a visual literacy assessment tool for molecular biology. 

• Conceptual Assessments in Bioinformatics: Bioinformatics, at the intersection of biology and computer science, is essential for analyzing large, complex data sets in modern biotechnology. Students need skills practice and foundational understanding of key concepts in bioinformatics. We will develop and test a novel bioinformatics assessment instrument, guided by published core competencies and our prior assessment design. 

STEM Educator Preparation

• Student Success in Introductory Math Courses: Math courses are a major factor in determining students’ retention and persistence in STEM disciplines. This work explores 1) how students experience their introductory math courses, 2) how their learning from these courses transfers to other STEM domains, and 3) how faculty navigate students’ preparedness with math concepts. Both quantitative (e.g., surveys) and qualitative (e.g., interviews, observations) methods will be used. 

• Novel Statistical Analyses of Student Success: This project merges data science and machine learning approaches with 10+ years of RIT grade data to answer questions about student success. For instance, are students more successful when taking multiple successive classes with the same classmates (“cohort” model)? By looking at performance as a function of students’ connectivity with classmates, we will identify critical “community-building” courses and other factors that affect success. 

Additional Projects Spanning Multiple Themes

• Grounding Cognition through Critical Self-reflection: Critical self-reflection is the foundation to thinking. This project explores the process of reflection in both retrospective and contemporaneous settings. Qualitative and quantitative research tests a new framework that hypothesizes that guided retrospective reflection correlates with and strengthens contemporaneous reflection. This is applied to metacognition — thinking about one’s learning — and ethics — thinking about one’s actions. The research seeks to reveal the role of intentional critical reflection in STEM research and academic progress and how this trait can be learned, practiced, and maintained. Students working in this project will engage in both qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand the relationship between reflection and thinking in STEM. 

• The Role of Listening in Public Outreach: Science for the public programs often take on the task of “informing in order to influence,” conveying information about science, scientists, and their role in society in order to foster a positive public image. This project looks at a distinctly different goal: communicating in order to acknowledge different viewpoints and affectively build relationships. Students working on this project will develop a framework that clearly articulates relationship-building as a goal which can then inform public interaction protocols. These outreach protocols will be tested by student researchers and other STEM practitioners in public settings such as farmer’s markets and county fairs. Autoethnographic reflections and qualitative interviews will assess the impacts on the outreach team and provide a model for scaling up to large-scale communication with the public. 

• Computational Literacy across STEM Disciplines: Computational skills are essential in STEM careers. Computational literacy describes not just technical skills, but also the contexts and practices needed to use computation effectively in STEM. Our research explores how computational literacy varies across disciplines and how it can be assessed through coursework and assignments, and the development and validation of tools for assessing students’ computational competencies.

Travel to RIT

Living at RIT

2027-2029: NSF grant DUE-2548101: REU Site: Advancing Next-Generation Workforce Development through Multidisciplinary STEM Education Research
2022-2024: NSF grant DUE-2149957: Research Experiences for Undergraduates: Multidisciplinary Research on Student Success in STEM at the Rochester Institute of Technology
2019-2021: NSF grant DUE-1757477, REU Site: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Model-based Reasoning in STEM Education at the Rochester Institute of Technology
2015-2017: NSF grant DUE-1359262, REU Site: Model-Based Reasoning and Representations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Learning at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

NSF Statement on Non-Tolerance of Sexual Harassment

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will not tolerate sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, or sexual assault within the agency, at awardee organizations, field sites, or anywhere NSF-funded science and education is conducted. The 3,000 U.S. institutions of higher education and other organizations that receive NSF funds are responsible for fully investigating complaints and for compliance with federal non-discrimination laws, regulations, and executive orders. NSF has taken steps to help ensure research environments are free from sexual harassment. Additionally, NSF is bolstering our policies, guidelines, and communications so that organizations funded by NSF clearly understand expectations and requirements.
NSF is working to make certain that recipients of grants and cooperative agreements respond promptly and appropriately to instances of sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, or sexual assault. A community effort is essential to eliminate sexual and other forms of harassment in science and to build scientific workspaces where people can learn, grow, and thrive.

For any questions, comments, or concerns regarding sexual or other forms of harassment, please contact the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), National Science Foundation, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22314, email: harassmentnotifications@nsf.gov; telephone (703) 292-8020; FAX: (703) 292-9482.