REU SITE: UC Irvine Summer Institute in Neuroscience

This REU Site award to the University of California Irvine Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, located in Irvine, CA, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2025-2027. It is anticipated that a total of 30 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities or from an under-represented group, will be trained in the Summer Institute in Neuroscience.

Students will complete a research project as part of a laboratory team, mentored by a faculty member and doctoral student. Students will also participate in cohort-wide training to prepare them for graduate school and a career in science. These sessions will include training on the fundamentals of neuroscience, research methods, data analysis, scientific communication, team science, ethics, and responsible conduct of research.

All students will present the results of their research at a research symposium. Assessment of this program will be done through an online tool. Students should apply to the REU site using NSF ETAP (Education and Training Application: https://etap.nsf.gov).

The Irvine Summer Institute in Neuroscience offers undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to participate in high-caliber research projects with mentorship from faculty and graduate students. The program includes an introductory boot camp, personalized lab placements, weekly journal clubs, professional development workshops, networking opportunities, and specialized methods workshops.

The research focus of the program is to understand the fundamentals of how the brain works. By engaging individuals from underrepresented groups, the program seeks to increase diversity in the biomedical sciences, ultimately accelerating discovery and societal progress.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.