Research Experience for Undergraduates-2002

The Undergraduate Research Assistants (URA) students Janice Pang, Rory Ball, Dan Turner, Ryan Petersen, and Neda Svrakic joined the REU students David Asfar, Beth Ferris, Veronica Parker, and Tan VU for the workshop.

The genre of the research report was discussed with emphasis on the introduction and the importance of citing what might be taken as “shared knowledge”. Students received a bound packet of four sample reports from previous years and a second packet that outlined a very common rhetorical pattern for abstracts and introductions. A sample of earthquake article abstracts from Nature was also analyzed. A one-on-one consultation was held with each student to talk about his or her research report.

Group discussions about effective Power Point presentations were held with a short presentation being videotaped. Students may elect to receive further support from the communication facilitators by posting their papers/queries on the Interactive Papers website.

The tri-center Earthquake Engineering Symposium for Young Researchers was the final activity for the ten-week summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. The symposium was held at Keystone Resort and Conference Center, Colorado on August 8-11, 2002 and supplied a forum for the REU students to introduce the results of their research. The MAE Center was the host for this year’s symposium.

Eight students from the MAE Center Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Undergraduate Research Assistants (URA) programs joined three students from MCEER and seven students from PEER to give their presentations. Each student provided an abstract of his or her paper. Professor Ed Harris from the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A&M University offered the ethics component of the REU experience with concurrent breakout sessions to discuss ethical dilemma problems. Dr. Ross Corotis from the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, was the keynote speaker.

Students were treated to a field trip to the U.S.G.S. National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) in Golden, Colorado. Dr. Waverly Person discussed the 24-hour-a-day Earthquake Early Alerting Service that rapidly and accurately determines the location and magnitude of significant earthquakes throughout the world and disseminates that information to emergency management and public safety agencies. Students also learned that NEIC collects and provides for scientists and to the public an extensive seismic database that serves as a solid foundation for scientific research. A walk to the Colorado School of Mines concluded the field trip with Dr. Panos Kiousis and Dr. Richard Christenson providing lectures and a tour of facilities.