Progress 08/01/24 to 07/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:After receiving the award notice in spring 2023, we immediately began our marketing and recruiting effort to run our REEU program in summer 2023. As stated in our project summary, our goal for this Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates (REEU) proposal is to train 100 upper-level undergraduates from TAMU and partnering universities during a 5-year period in the practice of hypothesis-driven scientific research and extension projects at the interface of plant, microbial, and bioenvironmental sciences. We shared our program announcement with our partner institutions, Prairie View A&M, Univ of Texas (UT)-Rio Grande Valley, UT- San Antonio, and TAMU- Kingsville, as well as other schools, including Texas A&M International University (Laredo, TX), Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX). In 2023, we had 13 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University and UT-Rio Grande Valley. In 2024 summer, 18 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University, UT-Austin, and Austin College were provided this experience. This past summer (2025), we recruited 17 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University (Bioenvironmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Soil and Crop Sciences, Horticulture, and Biology majors), Texas A&M International University, and Fresno State University for the program. Eight to ten faculty members serve as mentors in our summer REEU program.? Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the 10-week REEU programs, participating students had opportunities to learn and demonstrate their knowledge scientific methods in research and extension by formulating hypotheses for assigned projects and designing experiments with controls to test the hypotheses and interpret results. They also participated in weekly meetings hosted by a student mentor to improve on scientific communication by reporting status of experiments in laboratory group meetings and preparing oral and/or poster presentations of findings. This was a student-led meeting, which provided a more welcoming environment for REEU students to share their success, challenges, and solutions. Students also participated in professional development, including attending Profession Agriculture Field Days, Faculty job interviews, and Clifton Strength Assessment workshop. Lastly, our summer REEU program wrapped up? with a poster symposium where REEU students presented their research/extension poster to the department faculty, staff and graduate students.? How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We promoted our REEU program through our departmental social media as well as Texas A&M AgriLife Today news. We also encouraged REEU students to share their experience, research finding, and enthusiasm through social media and foster their development as "ambassadors of science" who generate enthusiasm for agricultural science in general, and our REEU programs in particular. Through this REEU program, we continue to promote undergraduate students' understanding of agricultural science research and extension career paths. Through our social media networking, we can confirm that three 2023 REEU participants have now enrolled in Plant Pathology graduate programs in the US. From the 2024 REEU participants, we can confirm 4 students are pursuing graduate education in plant pathology or genetics and up to 4 students are pursuing a career in agriculture related science/industry.? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are very energized by the successful launch of our REEU program in 2023 and continued success in 2024 and 2025. We have an ambitious goal of training 100 students during our project. We will continue to market our program aggressively and recruit students who share? interest in plant, microbial, and bioenvironmental sciences. We are planning on-campus visits to past partner Universities to broaden our recruitment efforts. We are also building up a database based on REEU participant surveys to gain better insight on our past students and to improve our program.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our project is a training program for undergraduate students. In 2023 summer, we offered summer research and extension experience to 13 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University and UT-Rio Grande Valley. In 2024 summer, 18 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University, UT-Austin, and Austin College were provided this experience. This past summer (2025), we recruited 17 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University (Bioenvironmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Soil and Crop Sciences, Horticulture, and Biology majors), Texas A&M International University, and Fresno State University for the program. As part of our REEU program, students participated in multiple field days hosted by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension, and Ag industry partners. These include Stiles Farm Field Day (Thrall, TX), Beaumont Rice Field Day (Beaumont, TX), and BASF Innovation Field Day (Snook, TX). In addition, our REEU program offered a mentoring opportunity to our graduate students as well as undergraduate program manager. Students were offered Clifton Strength Challenge workshop as well as graduate school preparation workshop (hosted by the Department Graduate Student Club).?
Publications
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Progress 08/01/23 to 07/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:After receiving the award notice in spring 2023, we immediately began our marketing and recruiting effort to run our REEU program in summer 2023. As stated in our project summary, our goal for this Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates (REEU) proposal is to train 100 upper-level undergraduates from TAMU and partnering universities during a 5-year period in the practice of hypothesis-driven scientific research and extension projects at the interface of plant, microbial, and bioenvironmental sciences. We shared our program announcement with our partner institutions, Prairie View A&M, Univ of Texas (UT)-Rio Grande Valley, UT- San Antonio, and TAMU- Kingsville, as well as other schools, including Texas A&M International University (Laredo, TX), Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX). However, we were cautious in our first recruiting effort due to the slow arrival of funds from AFRI and settled on accepting 14 students. We had 8 students from Texas A&M University Bioenvironmental Sciences,2 from Texas A&M University Environmental Studies, 1 Texas A&M University Studies, 2 Texas A&M International University Biology, and 1 UT-Rio Grande Valley Biology. Nine faculty mentors participated in our inaugural 2023 summer REEU program. Overall, this was a successful inaugural summer program.With the experience we gained in 2023 along with funds in place, we started our recruiting effort early and aggressively in 2024 spring. We continued to market our REEU program to our existing partners but also expanded our network, for instance UT-Austin, West Texas A&M University (Canyon, TX) and Austin College. We had a total of 18 students who were accepted and participated in 2024 summer REEU, 9 from Texas A&M University Bioenvironmental Sciences, 2 from Texas A&M University Biology, 2 from Texas A&M University Horticulture, 3 Texas A&M International University Biology, 1 UT-Austin Biology and 1 Austin College. While majority of our participants were from Texas A&M University, we were able to recruit from three different majors. Nine faculty served as mentors in in our 2024 summer REEU program. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the 10-week REEU programs, participating students had opportunities to learn and demonstrate their knowledge scientific methods in research and extension by formulating hypotheses for assigned projects and designing experiments with controls to test the hypotheses and interpret results. They also participated in weekly meetings hosted by a student mentor to improve on scientific communication by reporting status of experiments in laboratory group meetings and preparing oral and/or poster presentations of findings. Students also participated in professional development, including attending Field Days. Faculty job interviews, and Clifton Strength Assessment workshop. Lastly, both summer REEU program wrapped up with a poster symposium where REEU students presented their research/extension poster to the department faculty, staff and graduate students.? How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We promoted REEU students to share their experience, research finding, and enthusiasm through social media and foster their development as "ambassadors of science" who generate enthusiasm for agricultural science in general, and our REEU programs in particular. We also promoted students' understanding of agricultural science research and extension career paths. Through our social media networking, we can confirm that three 2023 REEU participants have now enrolled in Plant Pathology graduate programs in the US. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are very energized by the successful launch of our REEU program in 2023 and 2024. We have an ambitious goal of training 100 students during our project. We will continue to market our program aggressively and recruit students who share interest inplant, microbial, and bioenvironmental sciences.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our project is a undergraduate training program. In 2023 summer, we offered summer research and extension experience to 13 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University and UT-Rio Grand Valley. In 2024 summer, 18 undergraduate students from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M International University, UT-Austin, and Austin College were provided this experience. As part of our REEU program, students participated in multiple field days hosted by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension, and Ag industry partners. These include Stiles Farm Field Day (Thrall, TX), Beaumont Rice Field Day (Beaumont, TX), and BASF Innovation Field Day (Snook, TX). In addition, our REEU program offered a mentoring opportunity to our graduate students as well as undergraduate program manager. We were successful in recruiting students from historically underrepresented groups.
Publications
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