NUclear Recruitment Through Undergraduate REsearch (NURTURE)
University of Massachusetts Lowell
The proposal is to provide a ten-week summer research experience, continued by an academic year traineeship, to a cohort of six students a year from minority-serving community colleges in Massachusetts, leveraging the established research infrastructure of nuclear science and applications at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Radiation Laboratory. This is a key university research center, with a strong nuclear physics program at national laboratories, coupled with a unique combination of a 5.5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator and a 1 MW research reactor on campus. Trainees from minority-serving community colleges neighboring UMass Lowell will gain an appreciation of advanced nuclear detection techniques as well as the excitement of state-of-the-art experimental nuclear science, through hands-on experiential learning on campus, immersed in a welcoming research group of undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs and faculty. This would be supplemented with a visit to a national lab for a research experiment and a capstone experience of attending a national nuclear physics conference specifically tuned for undergraduate participation. The goal is to leverage ongoing funded research to recruit, nurture and spark interest in the cohort for the field of experimental nuclear physics and increase chances for under-represented minorities to continue on to a four-year undergraduate and eventually a graduate degree in the field. This program would also establish strong communication channels with minority-serving institutions in the region, creating a bridge for students to access other available opportunities at UMass Lowell and beyond.
