2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this poster will be to present results from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates Site at Penn State focused on low-carbon power and propulsion technologies. In the REU program, cohorts of 16 students per summer work at Penn State with faculty members, graduate student mentors, and research groups across the college of engineering related to propulsion and power generation, while also engaging in multiple professional development activities, including workshops, industry site visits, lab tours, and conference activities. Research topics of the students include combustion, additive manufacturing, fluid dynamics, materials, and heat transfer research. Simultaneously, engineering education research is being conducted on the students undergoing the research program, answering overarching research questions about the development of academic self-concept and how and when REUs can best influence undergraduate students to pursue graduate school. This poster will introduce the REU and the structure of the program and will also discuss findings from the first cohort of students from Summer 2023, which have been analyzed from the theoretical lenses of engineering identity and academic self-concept theory. Because of our grounding in theory, we intend for our REU model and the educational research studies performed to serve as a “sending context” in which other programs can consider designing REUs intentionally with experiences designed through educational theory to undergraduate students consider graduate school at the most beneficial time in their academic careers.