REM Program Excites the Next Generation of Energy Researchers
Starting in 2019, CISTAR partnered with the National Society of Black Engineers to offer a unique Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) combined summer program, where students conduct research for six weeks at Purdue University and then spend four weeks mentoring 3rd-5th graders with the National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE) Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) program.
Reflective of our applicant pool, the cohorts of REM students over the years have typically been around 75% Black/African American and 50% female. We are now going into our fifth year, with a total of 41 undergraduate engineering and science students already successfully completing — and overwhelmingly recommending — the program. These students are excited about a possible future career working in the field of energy and also passionate about "giving back" and helping kids from underserved backgrounds get excited about STEM fields, as well.
CISTAR's goal is to foster the REM student's interest in energy and get them inspired about doing research on energy sustainability. From across the U.S., talented and motivated college engineering and science students, who are often engaging in their first research experience, come to work with CISTAR faculty and graduate mentors on a research project for six weeks. We also leverage Purdue programs to help the REM students learn how to do research (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program) and learn about different career pathways (Pathways Scholar Program).
The theme across the different research projects is Energy for Our Growing World: How a wide range of energy sources (renewables, emerging energy technologies–biofuels, solar, nuclear, wind–and fossil fuels and shale) serve the needs of people, and how we balance those needs against the impact these energy sources differentially have on communities and our world.
Although challenging, the REM students are proud that by the end of the six weeks, with the help of mentors, they were able to learn the background literature, devise a research project, run the experiments, analyze the data, and successfully present a poster on what they accomplished. Working in the lab, doing energy research, and working with graduate student mentors were identified by the REM students as major strengths of the program. The REM students felt their mentors valued their opinion, made them feel a part of the research team, and helped them think more about their own future.
An Industry Energy Program was also organized around this Energy for Our Growing World theme, with industry professionals from such companies as BP, Dow, ExxonMobil, Honeywell, Origin Materials, Sabic, and Shell, talking to the REM students about what their companies were doing to meet the energy challenges facing the world. A weekly session with an industry mentor who let them define the topics to talk about helped grow their industry knowledge. Also, along with CISTAR's other summer research students, there were several eye-opening excursions to different kinds of energy sites, such as a refinery, a nuclear reactor, an experimental solar field, and a wind farm.
In this way, we help the REM students learn more about the wider energy landscape and connect what is going on in academic settings through research with what is going on in industry settings. We also help them feel included in this wider network of academic and industry professionals who may very well be their future colleagues.
A final important part of the program before they leave for their NSBE SEEK experience is teaching them more about energy justice. Increasingly there are demands on engineers to solve some of our large societal problems and to do so not only by understanding the technical problem and proposing a solution, but also to be sure in implementing solutions they are also advancing justice and not creating more inequities. Thus, we had a workshop to help the REM students learn about disadvantaged communities (e.g., the new EPA map) and why engineers need to understand such topics as the federal Justice40 program or energy sector priorities (e.g., increase energy democracy, decrease energy burden).
By the end of their summer experience, the majority of REM students thought they would possibly be working in the energy industry in the future and were excited about what they had learned about research on energy sustainability and energy justice.
According to the external evaluators, "Participants were also interested in the altruistic aspects of the energy field; they mentioned climate change and that alternative fuels can create a better world. They find the field of energy interesting and would love to be a part of addressing environmental issues and making the world a better place." Thus, with the REM program, we are creating a diverse next generation of engineers and scientists who want to be a part of the energy transformation and create a more equitable energy-fueled future!
To hear more about the program, please watch the REM students talk about their experience in the combined summer program: https://youtu.be/2G5L6qL4g0Q
If you want to support our educational efforts, please contact cistar@purdue.edu. Each year we have a summer cohort of between 12 to 15 students supported, in part, by an NSF grant as well as by private funding. CISTAR and NSBE SEEK want to grow this REM program to scale and to make it self-sustaining. Thank you.
