The last two-years-running, the National Science Foundation-funded REU was led by HSU's Dr. Guy-Alain Amoussou from the computing science department, in collaboration with Dr. Steve Steinberg in natural resources, and Dr. Elizabeth Burroughs and Dr. Ken Owens in mathematics.
The concept of the REU program is to encourage a diverse group of talented undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies in the areas of science and engineering.
Dr. Amoussou said the eight-week REU: Role Model in Sciences initiative includes practical research activities related to design. Interns develop poster presentations as well as publishable articles for journals or conference proceedings. In addition to polishing their research skills, they gain expertise in scientific writing and reasoning, communication, and ethics.
This year, nine students were recruited from four states -- California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Washington: Amber Hamilton, math major at Humboldt State University, researched "Bayesian Estimation of Partially Occluded Steelhead Population Pulses"; Sarah K. Ali, polymer science major at University of Southern Mississippi, studied "Two-Dimensional Stochastic Model Design for Hydronium Transport Through Proton Exchange Membrane of Fuel Cells"; Benjamin Jennings, physics/pre-eng major at Whitworth College, Washington, and Jamel C. Fleming, computing science major at Bethune Cookman College, Florida, explored "Design of a Semi-Automated Enumeration of Steelhead Salmon"; Ricardo Aytche, aerospace engineering major at University of Central Florida, and Joshua Eckroth, math and computing science major at Humboldt State University, studied "New Perspectives for the Science of Design for Software Intensive Systems"; Ryan Keller, math education major at Humboldt State University, researched "Math Education: Design an Analysis tool for the effectiveness of a Professional Development Institute"; and Kenyatta Perkins, computing science major at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, and Jennifer (Bell) Lumbert, GIS major at Humboldt State University, studied "Design of a rural area disaster planning using GIS: The Freshwater model."
For more information, contact Dr. Amoussou at 707/826-3380, amoussou@humboldt.edu.