What is IREU?

The National Science Foundation (NSF) annually supports over 400 sites nationwide in a range of technical areas to offer undergraduates an opportunity to "experience" the research environment with the goal of increasing future participation in graduate school programs. Only a few of these programs are international.

The NSF International REU Program in Optics, Lasers, Photonics & Optical Materials, directed from UCF, is a special program that seeks to provide promising undergraduates in physics, engineering, materials science and other related disciplines, an opportunity to fast track into the research world in these areas.

This program is a two year program, with in most cases students joining in their sophomore or junior year. The first summer internship will be spent at UCF College of Optics & Photonics or Clemson University’s School of Materials Science & Engineering, attached to a research program. In the second summer, successful students will be given the opportunity to study abroad (usually France or Germany), working for 12 weeks with one of our international collaborators. In the intervening Fall and Spring semesters we endeavor to keep the student actively involved in the research program.

There is thus a high probability that the peer-reviewed publications and presentations at international conferences result from the students work. Each year the student is encouraged to present a paper at the Symposium on Undergraduate Research at the Annual Frontiers in Optics conference, see 2009’s agenda here.