A Summer Experience Like No Other: Life as an REU at Boston University

By Jack Osmond, Photos by Kelly Peña

If you went to summer camp, you’ll remember the feeling well: leaving home, sometimes for weeks at a time, learning new things and meeting new people. You might think of archery, rowing, campfires and fireworks as the dog days of summer stretch on. What might not come to mind is cardiology, lithography, single-molecule force spectroscopy, and four-wave mixing––among other research topics. For the participants of the BU Photonics Center’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, such activities are precisely what drew them to Boston.

Over 1,200 undergraduate students from two- and four-year colleges around the US applied for the center’s ten-week program that would expose them to STEM research at Boston University. Twelve students were selected to pursue that goal, each working in Photonics Center labs under the mentorship of faculty and graduate researchers to not only further their own education, but to advance the further scientific knowledge in their respective fields.

Most of the students, or “REUs” as they are familiarly known, traveled to Boston from cities and towns across the US. The 2024 cohort also included three international students from Canada, China, and Russia. The REU program began with a full day of orientation including mentoring training and a tour of the Photonics Center and BU’s campus to point out some of the places the REUs would get to know well over the next ten weeks: the BU beach, the Center for Computing and Data Science, the Engineering and Product Innovation Center, as well as their labs in the Engineering and Photonics buildings. After orientation, the students hit the ground running with their research!

The REUs first faced the challenge of bringing themselves up to speed on the research questions that their labs investigate. Depending on previous lab experience, the first couple of weeks in an REU program can feel like being thrown in the deep end. But the REUs this year had no trouble figuring out how to swim, reading their labs’ recent publications, asking questions, and learning new procedures to understand both the short-term goals and long-term implications of their summer research. By the third week of the program, they were confidently sharing about their projects and passionately discussing concepts that were brand new to them just weeks before. By the latter half of the program, the students were running experiments independently, identifying alternative solutions when experiments were unsuccessful, and presenting their work to graduate students and faculty at lab meetings.

The REUs’ research supports the work of their graduate student mentors, who are members of the lab working on their dissertations. REUs also receive guidance from their faculty mentors, who direct and oversee the research for the entire lab.

Each REU is assigned to a lab based on their interests. This year’s research topics ranged from soft robotics to cardiology to environmental science. For example, REU Victor Perez, in Prof. Sheila Russo’s Material Robotics Lab, helped design a flexible robot capable of navigating to the periphery of the lung to improve early lung cancer screenings. Lea Hebert and Genevieve Vega studied how different seeding protocols affect cell viability and alignment in cardiac cultural models, which the Chen lab is looking to optimize for heart disease modeling. Haneen Ahmed developed hot disk measurement capabilities for Direct Air Carbon Capture in the Lubner Lab.

Many of the REU labs are located in the Photonics Center, which consists of shared labs, faculty labs, and a highly collaborative research community of faculty and students from the engineering, sciences, and medicine departments. The interdisciplinary nature of research and the center’s unique programs help foster collaboration across labs. REU participants have the unique opportunity to become part of this cutting-edge and interdisciplinary community for the summer.

As Summer 2024 Technical Coordinator Sharayu Shrinivas explains, “Rarely do universities have a nine-story building dedicated entirely to interdisciplinary research and innovation related to harnessing the potential of light, such as BU’s Photonics Center. To be welcomed in and hosted by such a hub allows students to further understand and see firsthand the multifaceted and collaborative nature of research and innovation, particularly in engineering.”

While the focus of REU programs is research, REU students also engaged in complementary enrichment and professional development activities. Every Wednesday, the REUs gathered for lunch centered around discussion seminars, panels, or workshops on topics designed to complement their research. These enrichment activities helped prepare participants for future graduate study or employment by developing communication skills, exploring ethics in research, and learning about different graduate degree options. These seminars provided opportunities for REUs to explore both the academic and industry side of STEM, to raise their awareness of options and career paths, and to help them formulate their professional and personal goals.

Outside of lab work and professional development, REUs explored the city of Boston through group social activities and outings. REUs typically ventured into the city as a cohort, which provided a sense of community support when many of them are first navigating living independently and working in a new city. This summer, the REUs made sure to check out a few of Boston’s many museums, including the MFA and the Harvard Museum of Science. They also got a taste of Boston sports culture when the Celtics won the NBA Championship – including Sebastian Martinez who made it into a Boston Globe article on the championship game! On the Fourth of July, the REUs traveled to Revere Beach to enjoy a day in the sun.

On many of their outings, the REUs were joined by Technical Coordinator Sharayu Shrinivas. In addition to managing the technical aspects of the summer program, the coordinator helps the REUs find their way around the city and acclimate to life in Boston. Now a first-year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at BU, Shrinivas was a Photonics REU in Summer 2023. As a former REU, Shrinivas used her own experience to help this year’s cohort navigate the program and the city, ensuring their personal and professional success throughout the duration of the program.

Shrinivas’s own time as an REU reaffirmed her intention to pursue her PhD. “My time as an REU allowed me to see and experience the day-to-day life of a BME PhD student at BU,” Shrinivas explains. “Having interacted with BU’s kind staff and faculty, observing my department’s organization, and living in the city of Boston, I felt it would be wonderful to continue my next steps here. The REU experience allowed me to ask questions about graduate school on the regular to various graduate students, which provided me with a thorough understanding about the structure of PhD programs and life as a graduate student at BU.”

The REU program continues to provide students with formative experience, aiming to introduce them to life and research in academia to help them better formulate their future plans. For example, REU Daimean Solis is applying to graduate school to pursue his master’s degree. In the REU program, Daimean worked on creating a blood testing device. Part of his interests are in bridging the gap between patients and the engineers who design such technology.

Genevieve Vega affirmed her intention to pursue an MS in Biomedical Forensic Sciences, saying that the program “helped me experience new things to make a well-informed decision on what I want to do with my future.”

Nastia Rudaeva loved her REU experience so much that she is applying to earn her doctorate degree in Biomedical Engineering at BU.

Thanks to the REU program, all of the students gained a clearer conception of their future goals by the end of the program. 

The REU students are also provided several opportunities to formally present their research to the BU community. On the penultimate day of the program, the REUs and RETs (Research Experience for Teachers) presented their summer research at the program’s culminating Poster Event, to BU peers, mentors, and faculty.

For over a decade, the Photonics Center’s REU programs have shaped the academic and professional trajectories of its participants, funded by the National Science Foundation with supplemental funding from the BU Photonics Center and Materials Science & Engineering Division. Some participants even return to BU as transfer or graduate students.

“Which we love!” adds Associate Director of Summer Programs and Outreach Brenda Hugot. “We spend the summers getting to know amazing undergraduates. We see them learn and gain confidence and support each other along the way. We are so lucky to share in their STEM journeys – and we’re always happy when some choose to continue their journey here at BU.”

The National Science Foundation has recently approved the Photonics Center REU programs for another three years of funding. If you’re interested in becoming an REU, you can apply for the Summer 2025 program here.