Undergraduate research in nuclear physics in Youngstown State University's Isomer Physics Project

Experimental research into the interaction of isomeric nuclei with the electromagnetic field has been conducted by the YSU Isomer Physics Project for more than a decade. Among the numerous studies have been a detailed investigation of the induced depletion of nature's rarest isotope, $^{180}$Ta, and the characterization of a new 2.29 s isomer in $^{174}$Tm. The backbone of these efforts has been comprised of undergraduate students from a variety of majors, performing experiments at facilities such as SPring-8 (Japan), Argonne National Laboratory (with Gammasphere), TRIUMF (Canada) and YSU's own X-ray Effects Laboratory (XEL). This talk with briefly survey the involvement of undergraduate students in this work.