The Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (VINSE) National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) will onboard our 13th cohort of undergraduate researches on Monday, 26, 2025. Since the VINSE NSF-REU program started in the summer of 2011, VINSE has hosted 145 students. Of these students 95% are still in STEM-related fields. More than half of our summer fellows have been (or are expected to be) an author on a journal publication and 76 students have presented their Vanderbilt summer research at 107 National Conferences.
Our students have gone on to win prestigious awards including: 26 NSF GRFPs , 1 NIH-GF, 1 DOE University Leadership Scholar, 1 NASA graduate fellowship, 2 NDSEG fellowship, 1 NIH GRPF, 2 NIH/UTSA ESTEEMED, 1 NIH Postbac IRTA award and 1 was named a NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholar. In addition, 8 have been named Goldwater Fellows (another 2 received honorable mentions), 1 Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, 1 Ford Foundation Fellowship, 1 Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, 1 Gates-Cambridge Scholar, 1 Jack Kent Cooke UT Scholar, 1 MARC Scholar, 1 Marshall Scholar, 2 Meyerhoff Scholar (M33), 1 Millennium Scholar, Paris Svoronos, 1 PD Soros Award for New Americans, 1 PREM Scholar, 1 Rhodes Scholar, 3 SMART fellowship and 1 was named an URISE Scholar.
Success of the VINSE NSF-REU program is largely due to leadership team (Josh Caldwell, Janet Macdonald, Clare McCabe, and Sarah Ross) and the incredible mentorship provided by the VINSE community. The 2025 mentoring team includes: Ginny An, Leon Bellan, Josh Caldwell, Daniel Chavarria, Craig Duvall, Praise Eromosele, Liz Hays, Kane Jennings, Youngji Kim, Janell Lees, Ethan Lippmann, Janet Macdonald, Shannon Martello, Jojo Pearson, Marjan Rafat, Sarah Ross, Ben Schmidt, Ava Stoltz, and Sharon Weiss.