If you are an undergraduate interested in research experiences with the CCI, click HERE!

To increase the exposure of undergraduates, including undergraduates from underrepresented groups, to the themes and research challenges of the CCI, we are developing two major educational efforts:

1)      a materials research partnership between UT-Austin and UT-Pan American in Harlingen, TX (see Broadening Participation)

2)      an undergraduate laboratory course focused on conjugated polymer research (see below)

Importantly, this laboratory course implements the model of UT-Austin’s Freshman Research Initiative (FRI). The FRI program was established at UT-Austin in 2005 with NSF URC funding and with the goal of immersing self-selected freshmen in cutting-edge, publishable research while receiving credit for traditional freshman laboratory courses. The FRI enrolls 500 freshmen per year, 40% of whom are from underrepresented groups. The FRI revolves around the “Research Stream,” a fully functional research lab of about 30 freshmen students that is supplemented with weekly lectures about the research the students are performing in the Stream. Currently there are 24 Streams on campus, 5 of which are grounded in the Chemistry department – but none that focus on polymer research.

Therefore, in Phase 1 of the CCI UT-Austin investigators are piloting undergraduate-level experiments focused on conjugated polymers in their labs. CCI undergraduate fellows are recruited each spring to conduct summer research. Feedback provided by these undergraduate fellows will be used to develop a conjugated polymer FRI Stream in Phase 2 of the CCI. To integrate the conjugated polymer stream with ongoing research at Columbia in Phase 2, interested FRI students who have completed the stream during the academic year will be offered the opportunity to work on theoretical calculations and/or synthesis at Columbia during the summer.

Selected course content for this research stream will also be derived from conducting polymer experiments that Columbia Site Director Colin Nuckolls has implemented into the existing undergraduate laboratory curriculum at Columbia. Nuckolls has worked with Columbia chemistry department lecturers to implement experiments focused on polyacetylene and polyaniline into undergraduate organic synthesis courses, and is continually revising and improving the course content based on student feedback.