Lohr College of Engineering welcomes new cohort of student-researchers

A new cohort of eager student researchers have descended on South Dakota State University's campus for another session of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. 

Led by Stephen Gent, a professor in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering, and Jung-Han Kimn, an associate professor in the Lohr College of Engineering, the Promoting Leadership in Advanced-Research-Computing for Interdisciplinary Sectors (PLAINS) program invites undergraduate students from universities across the U.S. to participate in a cutting-edge, hands-on research experience. 
 
“The REU program is very, very instrumental to students who want to actively pursue and engage in research as their professional career,” Gent said. “The National Science Foundation has recognized a long time ago that having more of our students be engaged earlier on in research at the undergraduate level is crucial for our workforce needs and challenges that we face in the 21st century in the United States.”
 
Since 2012, Gent and Kimn have led a 10-week holistic, real-world research experience focused on the responsible and ethical conduct of research, emotional intelligence and career development. Following an application and interview process, a cohort of 10 selected students are invited to SDSU's campus for the summer. Here, they are provided research opportunities that they likely wouldn't otherwise get at their home institutions as undergraduates. 
 
“SDSU is very well positioned to facilitate these research experiences,” Gent said. “We’re a very comfortably sized institution and a very well-respected program for bringing in students from across the country. We are the right size program for it. We have the resources; we have the personnel; we have the professors, the mentors, the graduate students and the support staff who are very committed to our students’ success here.”
 
After an onboarding process, the students are assigned research projects they can engage with over the course of the 10 weeks. The projects fall in the areas of high-performance computing, big data and computationally intensive models. All projects have "real-world" applications that can help students determine their future career interests. 
 
“We need a more qualified workforce,” Kimn said. “We work hard to help our students navigate the research experience, and hopefully this experience will help them point to a better future. I strongly believe this contributes to our society. This is the way South Dakota State University can help this country and this community.” 

This year, students from the University of Iowa, Dordt University, Morningside University, St. Mary's University of Minnesota, the University of South Dakota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are represented in the program. SDSU also has four representatives, including Caden Fischer, Jace Parliament, Lindsey Culver and Samara Overvaag. Majors include electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and mathematics, biomedical engineering and physics. 

"We have a great group of kids this year that I am really excited to work with," Gent said. "I anticipate a great summer of experiential learning and research."

Gent's and Kimn's REU program is funded by a $400,730 grant from the National Science Foundation.