UAHuntsville and NASAMSFC Heliophysics NSF REU SITE: Year Two Achievements and Challenges

In 2012, scientists at the University of Alabama in Hunstville and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center were awarded a 3 year National Science Foundation grant to become a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site. For the past two years, we have hosted a diverse group of 10 undergraduate students to engage in cutting edge heliophysics research. The primary objectives of this REU are to increase minority participation in science, technology and mathematics (STEM) fields in general, and heliophysics in particular, and decrease the STEM attrition rate in first and second year students. This REU is unique because of our focus on recruiting talented students that may not otherwise participate in a research program. In addition to the usual criteria a consideration of ``need'' was also given to those students who were sophomores, students with little or no previous research experience, those from small or nonPhD granting institutions, students with GPA less than 3.0, minorities and women. In our second year, we have increased minority participation to 50 percent, from 20 percent, admitted 2 first-year REU students into graduate school at UAH in heliophysics related fields, two REU students are co-authors on research published in scientific journals (one in Science magazine), and all students from both years submitted poster presentations to a national scientific conference. In this poster we discuss our program and outline challenges and goals for the upcoming year.