For Faculty:

Submit project title, abstract and image.

For students:

Apply online here.

• You will need to submit your resume, and identify the project(s) you are interested in. 

Deadlines

The deadline for applications for the 2010 REU program is February 1, 2010. Students should submit a resume--including current contact information--to the REU Office.

Eligibility

The program is designed for student who are juniors during the internship period, but exceptional sophomores will also be considered.

Research Opportunities

The following projects are available for the coming summer.  Interested students are encouraged to apply and to get in touch with the associated faculty contact for each project. 

Implications of Vegetation Dynamics for Semi-Arid Hydrology

Seismic Hazard Mitigation for Mission-Critical Infrastructure

Computational Studies of Fragmentation

Fundamental Studies of Wave-Energy Conversion Systems

Assessing the Stability of Earth Materials fron Non-Invasive Geophysical Measurements

Fate of Biosolid Derived Organic Contaminants in Soils and Effects on Soil Microbial Communities

Electronic Nose Development

Biodiesel Production from Microalgae 

Bioreactors for Air Pollution Control

Fate, Mobility and Bioavailability of Nanoscale Mercury and Other Metal Pollutants

Environmental impacts of coal combustion products

Implications of Vegetation Dynamics for Semi-Arid Hydrology: This project addresses the coupled eco-hydrologic dynamics of semi-arid Mediterranean watersheds, where the surface drinking-water reservoirs depend almost exclusively on overland flow in the rainy season and where the vegetation growth is water limited.  The motivation centers on the observed and projected decreases in winter rainfall, stemming from shifts in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns.  Presently, the ability to predict future hydrologic behavior of these systems is limited by gaps in understanding of how changes in the vegetation cover interact with precipitation dynamics to control the hydrological response. The research will test a set of five focused hypotheses in a Sardinian study basin that is already instrumented and broadly representative of semi-arid Mediterranean watersheds.  This project is being jointly conducted by US and Italian faculty and students.  Two US undergraduate researchers and a US graduate student will spend the summer on the island of Sardinia working with Italian students to collaboratively conduct overland flow experiments to capture the effect of variable grass cover and rainfall intensity on infiltration and runoff generation.  Faculty contact: Professor John Albertson (john dot albertson at duke dot edu).

Seismic Hazard Mitigation for Mission-Critical Infrastructure: The functionality and serviceability of hospitals, emergency-response centers, and data centers immediately after an earthquake depend not only on the dynamic responses of the building, but also on the responses of the building contents.  This project aims to answer important questions related to seismic protection of critical sub-systems: What is the maximum level of seismic protection that rolling isolation systems can provide to fragile equipment for near-fault ground motions and far-fault motions? What is the sensitivity of rolling equipment isolation systems to the large displacement demands of near-fault ground motions? Can elastomeric or frictional damping effectively attenuate pay-load accelerations and isolator drift? The results and recommendations from this project will be based on a series of numerical simulations and full-scale experiments on the Duke Seismic Simulator.  REU student work will involve some combination of shake table testing, numerical modeling, and hazard analysis. Faculty contact: Professor Henri Gavin (henri dot gavin at duke dot edu).

Computational Studies of Fragmentation:  This project concerns the study of large-scale fragmentation using computer simulation based on the finite-element method.  The student researcher will be trained in running a research code on the 128-cpu cluster FastBreak.  The study will involve conducting simulations of high-speed impact and looking at statistical measures of fragment distributions, to understand the role between material properties, flaw distributions, strain rates, and fragment size.  Opportunities for small-scale experiments on glass and computer-graphics visualization are also possible in this project.  Faculty contact: Professor John Dolbow (jdolbow at duke dot edu).   

Fundamental Studies of Wave-Energy Conversion Systems: This project will involve the use of emerging finite-element technologies to simulate the response of model wave-energy conversion systems.  The undergraduate researcher will be tasked with developing simple models of conversion-systems and simulating their response to breaking waves, using coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian methods.  Simulations will be performed on the 128-cpu cluster FastBreak that is located in Pratt, and the Fellow will be tasked with validating the simulation results against small-scale experiments in Pratt's wave tank.  Faculty contact: Professor John Dolbow (jdolbow at duke dot edu).  

Assessing the Stability of Earth Materials fron Non-Invasive Geophysical Measurements:  Numerous natural phenomenon, e.g., landslides, liquefaction and debris flow which all pose as geo-hazards, occur near the fluid/solid transitions of suspensions and saturated sediments. Characterization and monitoring of such natural phenomena demand knowledge about the physical and mechanical properties of unconsolidated near surface geo-materials of interest. Ability to locate and monitor weaker soil/rock units in the subsurface non-invasively using geophysical methodologies would be cardinal to the assessment of the lifetime integrity of sensitive structures. To be able use geophysical methods to monitor and predict the incipient transition from frame-supported solid to suspension-like materials would be extremely useful as they are non-invasive, cheaper to perform than drilling many sampling wells and faster in operation. However, interpretation of field geophysical measurements poses a challenge and its usefulness in geotechnical engineering demands knowledge of how physical factors (external and internal) that affect the strength of unconsolidated materials, such as pore space geometry, pore fluid content, porosity, texture, mineralogy, permeability and pore pressure (effective stress) relate to the measurable geophysical responses. Knowledge of the characteristic geophysical parameters ( seismic or electrical) of unconsolidated materials under low effective stress
conditions would be very useful for non-invasive assessment of their stability conditions and thus useful in geohazard mitigation and prediction. The mechanisms by which these factors influence seismic or electrical measurements are complex and coupled, and demands development of comprehensive theoretical models and conduction of controlled laboratory experiments to understand them.  Faculty contact: Professor Fred Boadu (boadu at duke dot edu).

Fate of Biosolid Derived Organic Contaminants in Soils and Effects on Soil Microbial Communities: Wastewater treatment processes do not efficiently remove all types of contaminants. The accumulation of these contaminants in biosolids is a growing concern because approximately 50% of biosolids in the United States are currently land-applied.  Thus, there is potential for these pollutants to become mobilized in the environment following land-application of biosolids and cause adverse environmental effects. Batch and bench scale experiments are being carried out to measure contaminant distribution as well as their impact on microbial community structure and function. A complete biological analysis will be performed, including terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism, clone library screening, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, gene expression and enzymatic activity analyses. At the conclusion of this study several metrics will be calculated to evaluate biosolid land application on environmental and soil health. These include: 1) soil retention factors of each contaminant (e.g. half-life in soils); 2) bioavailability of contaminants to plants cultivated in the soils; 3) the plant biomass production; and 4) by determining the threshold concentrations of each contaminant that is responsible for a significant microbial shift in microbial community structure and a 10% decrease in denitrification rate.  Faculty contact: Professor Claudia Gunsch (ckgunsch at pratt dot duke dot edu).

Electronic Nose Development: An important concern in many processing activities (e.g., composting, sewage treatment, etc.) is the monitoring and control of odors. Typical odorants include H2S, ammonia, reduced sulfur compounds, nitrogen and sulfur heterocycles, and low molecular weight carboxylic acids. Many of these compounds have extremely low odor thresholds. Unfortunately, “odor” is a perception and not something that can be directly correlated with the concentration of one or a few selected chemical species. Therefore, cumbersome odor panels are being used for odor monitoring. The lack of on-line odor monitoring methods is a major impediment to effective odor management.

In collaboration with former colleagues at UC Riverside, we have made significant advances in the development of gas nanosensors based on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) functionalized with various gas sensing groups. In their simplest form, individual sensors exhibit a change in electrical resistance upon exposure to given gas analytes (see figure). The sensors are sensitive and very inexpensive to produce. The research will initially focus on the development of new gas nanosensors and nanosensors arrays and testing with selected odorous substances. Next, odor expressed as “dilution to threshold” (D/T) will be correlated with the fingerprint produced by the nanosensor arrays. Faculty contact: Professor Marc Deshusses (marc dot deshusses at duke dot edu).

Biodiesel Production from Microalgae: The production of global warming gases from traditional energy sources has recently highlighted the need for alternative sources of sustainable energy.  Biodiesel is a biodegradable and non-toxic fuel which produces approximately 60% less net carbon dioxide emissions as compared to petroleum based diesel.  Many vehicles can easily be retrofitted to use biodiesel in lieu of regular gasoline and, thus, biodiesel shows a lot of promise as an alternative fuel.  Biodiesel has been produced from a variety of products including corn, soybean and castor seeds.  In the proposed research, several microalgal strains with high lipid content will be investigated as a source of biodiesel.  One advantage of microalgae over other biodiesel precursors is that microalgae can grow photosynthetically (using sunlight as their energy source) and are a sink for atmospheric CO2 when sunlight is present.  The overall goal of this research is to produce Biodiesel while minimizing CO2 production. To this end, the project will be broken down into two main components.  First, biodiesel yields will be compared for several microalgal strains grown heterotrophically (CO2 production) and autotrophically (CO2 consumption).  Second, a bioreactor will be constructed to optimize biodiesel production while simultaneously removing CO2 thereby minimizing the overall carbon footprint.  Faculty contact: Professor Claudia Gunsch (ckgunsch at pratt dot duke dot edu).

Bioreactors for Air Pollution Control: Over the past two decades, there has been increasing interest in using bioreactors for air pollution control from stationary sources. The most promising bioreactors for air treatment are biofilters and biotrickling filters. Their principle is relatively simple: a contaminated air stream is passed through a packed bed on which pollutant-degrading organisms are immobilized. Contaminants in the air are absorbed and biodegraded to harmless compounds. The most successful applications have been for the treatment of dilute waste gas streams containing odors or volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Biofilters and biotrickling filters are significant developments for environmental protection. They operate at ambient temperatures, they do not require additional fossil fuel input, and do not generate secondary wastes such as CO2, NOx or spent activated carbon. Several projects are available depending on the field of interest of the REU candidate. These include the development of new bioreactors for air pollution control, process intensification in air toxics biotreatment, novel applications of biotrickling filters, microbiology and mass transfer aspects in biotrickling filters.  Faculty contact: Professor Marc Deshusses (marc dot deshusses at duke dot edu).

Fate, Mobility and Bioavailability of Nanoscale Mercury and Other Metal Pollutants: We study the ability for mercury and other metals to persist as sulfide particles, the most stable form of mercury in aquatic and sediment ecosystems. Our group is investigating interfacial surface reactions that enable mercury nanoparticles to persist in the environment such as contaminated sediments. Our goals are to understand the implications of this process for controlling bioavailability of mercury to sediment microorganisms and, ultimately, to develop models that can predict ecosystem 'hotspots' that are vulnerable to mercury bioaccumulation. Faculty contact: Professor Helen Hsu-Kim (hsukim at duke dot edu).

Environmental Impacts of Coal Combustion Products:  In this research we are investigating the fate of metal, metalloid, and radionuclide pollutants associated with coal combustion products (CCPs) during their disposal or accidental release to the environment. This work includes a field investigation of the coal ash spill (the largest in U.S. history) that occurred in December 2008 in Kingston, Tennessee. In a related project, our group is also investigating possible modifications to mercury capture technology during coal combustion. We are developing sulfur-based sorbent materials that can be used to improve capture of mercury from flue gas while also produce solid wastes that are less susceptible to harmful transformations during disposal. Faculty contact: Professor Helen Hsu-Kim (hsukim at duke dot edu).