As prospective REU participants, you might be interested to learn more about
the department, university, and region you could be spending time in as a
summer researcher.
Department of Physics and Astronomy
The Department of
Physics and Astronomy is a lively place, featuring an energetic, friendly,
close-knit group of about 60 faculty members and 100 graduate students. Areas
of active research include
astronomy, biological physics, experimental and
theoretical condensed matter physics, experimental and
theoretical
high energy physics, nuclear physics, and physics and astronomy
education. Department faculty are also members of a number of focused and
often interdisciplinary research centers, including the Center for
Quantitative Biology, the Center for Emergent Materials, the
Laboratory for Surface Modification, and the New High Energy
Theory Center. Among other resources, department researchers are guaranteed
a ~10% share of the observing time on the Southern African Large
Telescope (SALT), which is the largest optical telescope in the southern
hemisphere. The deadline for applications to the department's
graduate
program, which features a new research-focused qualifying exam and
a low student-to-faculty ratio, is January 1 every year.
Rutgers University
Rutgers is the State
University of New Jersey, and has adopted as its tagline "Jersey Roots, Global
Reach." The main New Brunswick/Piscataway campus (somewhat confusingly
comprising five different "campuses" most easily navigated by free bus) is complemented by satellite campuses in Camden and
Newark. A number of other REU or REU-like programs in different research
areas also take place on campus every summer, so if you have classmates with
interests different from yours, you may wish to bring this list to their
attention:
Note that participants in RISE (like participants in the physics and
astronomy REU program) are eligible for support from a SUPER-Grad (Summer
Pipeline to Excellence at Rutgers Graduate) Fellowship in their first
year of graduate school if they apply to and are admitted to Rutgers.
Living in central New Jersey
New Jersey's nickname of the "Garden State" is more appropriate than you
might think from its popular reputation, and from the central part of the
state, you can get to the beach or to the Appalachian Trail in a relatively
short drive. For those with more urban tastes, New York is less than an
hour away from New Brunswick by train, and Philadelphia is not much farther (albeit
requiring a change in Trenton). Newark Liberty
is the closest major airport and is conveniently on the same train line that
connects New Brunswick and New York.
Last edited December 1, 2020.