The George Washington Carver Research Program welcomes scholars from all academic disciplines. If you do not see an internship listed that fits your research or academic goals, you are still encouraged to apply to the George Washington Carver Research Program. Please contact the director for any questions or concerns.
Business Administration
Mentor: Dr. Barbara Lofton
The Office of Diversity Programs and the Graduate School of Business at the Sam M. Walton College of Business offer a program designed to allow students to experience graduate education at the University of Arkansas. The Carver Program in the Walton College will provide students with an opportunity to intern for 8 weeks with a major corporation/business in Northwest Arkansas. Students will focus on real business challenges, solutions and processes as a part of a required project. At the end of the project, students will develop and present an executive presentation of their intern project experience.
Cell and Molecular Biology REU
This REU is funded by the National Science Foundation, and application must be made directly to the program. They have positions available specifically for GWCRP students. This internship is a 10-week internship with a different funding package. For more complete, application information, please visit their website at http://www.uark.edu/depts/cemb/REU/index.htm.
Chemical Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Shannon Servoss
Our research focuses on the development of antibody microarrays for screening of disease biomarkers, and eventually for early disease detection. One area of interest is the design of non-fouling, three-dimensional surface coatings for ELISA microarray. This project will involve: (1) the synthesis of peptoids using an automated peptide synthesizer, (2) characterization and purification of the peptoids using high-pressure liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, circular dichroism, and SEM, and (3) performance testing of the surface coatings by ELISA microarray.
Computer Science/Computer Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Jia Di
Three Dimensional IC Design for Delay-Insensitive Asynchronous Logic
In recent years, as process size has decreased thereby reducing gate latency, gate interconnect has become more of a limiting factor to performance and power. With 3D-IC’s intrinsic capacity to reduce wire length, interconnect related issues can be better mitigated, improving performance by reducing latency and power. However, thermal instability is foreseen as a potential hazard in synchronous 3D-ICs due to the temporal and spatial locality of their switching activity and the increased power density resulting from die stacking. Delay-insensitive asynchronous logic generally results in circuits that consume less power and have more uniformly distributed switching activities when compared to synchronous counterparts. On the other hand, delay-insensitive asynchronous circuits tend to suffer from longer interconnects and are generally slower than their synchronous counterparts. This makes implementing NCL circuits in 3D ideal as both their difficulties are alleviated by the advantages of the other. This project is to design, simulate, and analyze a series of methodologies in implementing delay-insensitive asynchronous circuits into 3D IC architecture using industry-standard 3D IC design CAD tools, in order to evaluate the tradeoffs in area, power, and speed. The outcomes include a thorough understanding of CMOS circuit design, knowledge of 3D digital IC design methodology, and skills of IC design toolsets.
Computer Science/Computer Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Jia Di
Ultra-Low Power Delay-Insensitive Asynchronous Circuits
Power consumption has become one of the most critical design challenges to digital IC designers. Circuits operating in subthreshold region, i.e., the supply voltage, VDD, is below the transistors’ threshold voltages, Vt, are able to achieve very low power consumption. However, reducing VDD causes the delay to increase drastically. To improve the circuit speed, threshold voltages need to be scaled down with VDD, which causes the leakage power to increase. Multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS) uses transistors with different threshold voltages. The logic blocks consist of low-Vt transistors for better speed in active mode, while high-Vt transistors are used to gate the power in sleep mode to reduce leakage. Unfortunately, the prevailing MTCMOS synchronous circuits have two major drawbacks – “sleep-transistor” sizing and sleep signal generation. This project aims to solve these problems by utilizing delay-insensitive asynchronous logic. Fine-grain sleep mechanism insertion eases sleep-transistor sizing and the handshaking signals can be used as the sleep signals controlling the corresponding logic stage. The resulting circuits, compared to the synchronous counterparts, will have lower active and sleep energy consumption, as well as smaller area.
Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences
The Arkansas Discovery Farms Program
Mentor: Andrew Sharpley
As in most part of the U.S., farming in Arkansas is under increasing pressure to manage nutrients in an environmentally sustainable manner, while trying to remain economically viable and competitive in today’s’ global market place. In response, the farming community in Arkansas has proactively supported a stakeholder-driven research and demonstration program to document the water quality benefits of current and alternative management practices. Faculty at the University of Arkansas have created from the ground up, a farmer-driven program that is (1) assessing the need for and effectiveness of adopting appropriate Best Management Practices (BMPs) to reduce nutrient and sediment loss and conserve water for Arkansas farming; (2) providing on-farm verification of nutrient and sediment loss reductions and water conservation; (3) mitigating nutrient and sediment losses that may prevent State waters from attaining designated uses; and (4) delivering outreach programs to producers in achieving production goals and environmental. This program, as well as the formation of strong partnerships, has the potential to affect millions of agricultural acres across the state. Program results will also give all of us the confidence that we are doing our part to maintain safe and affordable food supplies, while protecting our natural resources for future generations of Arkansans. But most importantly, we are empowering the farming community to take on and overcome the environmental pressures being placed on farming by the non-farming community. The intern will conduct a research study on our Discovery Farm in Northwest Arkansas, learn how environmental and ecosystem monitoring is undertaken, collect soil and water samples, and meet with farmers to learn how real data can have real impacts and provide real solutions on real farms.
Drama
Mentor: Clinnesha D. Sibley
Theatre research projects will be area specific with Playwriting being the primary focus area.
Playwriting- The student will refine an original one-act play (30-60 pages in length/No more than 5 characters). The script must be written and submitted prior to the internship. The student will engage in research that helps in developing characters, providing a historical backdrop, and/or validating social behavior. The play will undergo an intense development process and receive a public workshop production in a fully-equipped studio theatre.
Students interested in Performance will select an admired theatre actor and put together a performance tribute/series of monologues of their best work. Research will focus on character analyses and production history of the plays the monologues/excerpts are featured in.
Students interested in Dramaturgy will select a play from a diverse reading list, develop a thesis statement regarding the work and/or the author, and critically analyze the particular dramatic topic of choice.
All students will have the opportunity to attend live theatre in Northwest Arkansas and visit classes offered by the U of A Department of Drama. Given where his/her passions lie, research projects may be catered to the individual need of the artist.
Electrical Engineering
Mentors: Dr. Juan Carlos Balda and Mr. Art Barnes
Solar power is abundant and researchers are seeking ways to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) panels and associated power electronics to connect to the power grid, as well as to reduce the system costs. To obtain the most possible power out of a PV panel, it must be operated at a particular operating condition called the maximum power point (MPP). The students in this project will research the different power electronic interfaces to connect PV panels to the power grid and the methods used for maximum power point tracking (MPPT), become familiar with a Labview-based data acquisition system available in the Senior Design Lab of the department, capture and analyze the data, and draw conclusions about PV systems for power generation.
Electrical Engineering
Mentors: Dr. Hameed Naseem, Dr. Vasundara Varadan, and Dr. Shui-Qing Yu
Undergraduate summer research opportunities are available in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to work at he GREEN center. GREEN (Green, Renewable, Energy Efficient Nanoplasmonic Solar Cells) is a $6.7M multi university grant funded by NSF to develop the next generation low-cost high-efficiency solar cells. Carver Fellows will be exposed to and obtain hands on experience with a series of state-of-the-art research equipment such as ultra-high-vacuum deposition system, scanning electron microscope, high power lasers, variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometer for optical characterization. Carver Fellows will conduct novel materials development research, advanced microscopy analysis, and optical characterization. The students will have close interaction with three faculty members, Prof. Vasundara Varadan, Prof. Hameed Naseem and Prof. Shui-Qing Yu, and a large group of postdoctoral and graduate researchers from multiple disciplinary research fields. The detailed research work involves using UA patented metal-induced crystallization technique to develop SiC and Ge large grain size crystals which have a very good potential for use in the next generation power electronic and solar cell devices in order to significantly reduce device costs.
The project will require three students. Two students will work on materials development and the third student will do the optical characterization. Students with background in physics, engineering, and chemistry are encouraged to apply.
Electrical Engineering
Mentors: Dr. T.A. Walton & Dr. Roy McCann
You will have an opportunity to accomplish three objectives:
- Design PV grid interface power electronic circuit
- Computer simulation of circuit design
- Develop control software
- Build low-power inverter circuit
- Test and evaluate
Entomology
Mentor: Dr. Fiona L. Goggin
Molecular Ecology of Plant-Herbivore Interactions
In order to increase food production to meet the needs of the world’s growing population, it is essential to reduce our current crop losses to insects, nematodes, and other pests. In parallel, we must also reduce our dependence upon hazardous pesticides in order to safe-guard food safety, water quality, and worker safety, as well as to protect our natural environment. The most effective means to address both of these challenges is to develop crop varieties that are resistant to pests, and therefore do not require extensive pesticide applications. To this end, my laboratory utilizes molecular genetics to study natural plant defenses against insects and nematodes, with the goal of enhancing these defenses in crop plants. Current emphases of my research program include the influence of fatty acid signaling and vitamin C content in plants on herbivore host preference, survival, and reproduction. We are utilizing tomato and Arabidopsis as model systems, and are comparing levels of herbivore resistance in genotypes with differing fatty acid profiles and vitamin C metabolism. Herbivores considered include sap‐feeding aphids, foliar‐feeding caterpillars, and root‐feeding nematodes (roundworms). Techniques employed in my laboratory include bioassays to measure herbivore performance, electrical penetration graph recordings to monitor insect feeding behaviors, DNA and RNA isolation, PCR genotyping, gene expression analysis by real‐time PCR, spectrophotometric analysis of vitamin C and other antioxidants, and analysis of microarray data.
Food Science
Mentor: Dr. Navam Hettiarachchy
This REU is funded by Masterfoods/Institute of Food Technologies and application must be made directly to the program. They have positions available specifically for GWCRP students. This internship is a 10-week internship with a different funding package. For more complete, application information, please visit their website at http://foodscience.uark.edu/2675.php.
Mechanical Engineering REU
This REU is funded by the National Science Foundation, and application must be made directly to the program. They have positions available specifically for GWCRP students. This internship is a 10-week internship with a different funding package. For more complete, application information, please visit their website at http://www.meeg.uark.edu/5198.php.
Plant Pathology
Mentor: Dr. Burt Bluhm
An internship is available to study the molecular basis of plant-fungal interactions. In a project supported by the National Science Foundation, Dr. Burt Bluhm’s research group is elucidating how Cercospora zeae-maydis, a fungal foliar pathogen, infects and colonizes maize. The internship project will focus on identifying and characterizing molecular signals exchanged between the host and pathogen. This project will be accomplished with a variety of molecular techniques, including expression profiling (RNA-seq), metabolic fingerprinting and profiling, functional genomics, and molecular genetics. The specific activities will be designed to match the participating student’s research interests. To the fullest extent possible, results will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Plant Pathology
Mentors: Dr. John Rupe and Dr. Craig Rothrock
Effects of seed treatments on soybean growth
Seedling diseases, a serious problem for soybean growers, are caused by a number of pathogens, particularly Fusarium spp. And Pythium spp. In addition, there are a number of chemical and biological treatments that enhance plant growth. The student will compare the effects of various biological and chemical seed treatments on plant growth and disease development. The student will learn to grow and identify various fungi and other pathogens, setup and conduct greenhouse experiments, measure disease and plant growth, and isolate microorganisms from plant roots. Among the measurements to be taken, is root architecture. This will be done by using a special scanner to produce high resolution images of root systems and them a computer program to measure various aspects of root growth. The student will analyze these results statistically and make a written and oral report on their results. In addition to their project, the student will help with other projects in the laboratory and have the opportunity to visit research locations in other parts of the state.
Space and Planetary Sciences REU
This REU is funded by the National Science Foundation, and application must be made directly to the program. They have positions available specifically for GWCRP students. This internship is a 10-week internship with a different funding package. For more complete, application information, please visit their website at http://spacecenter.uark.edu/97.htm.
