Program Overview

The University of Maine (UMaine) offers a research and educational NSF funded program to a diverse pool of undergraduates interested in research connected to sustainable forest bio-products development. UMe’s Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative (FBRI) is a multidisciplinary research institute that includes faculty from chemical and biological engineering, chemistry, forestry, molecular biology, resource economics and wood science and technology. Other campus research centers that support the REU program include the Pulp and Paper Process Development Center, the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center, and the Cooperative Forestry Research Unit.

1. The REU bioproducts research opportunity in Maine includes the following assets and opportunities:
   Maine is the most heavily forested state in the nation.
2. It has a highly integrated wood products industry (energy, pulp & paper sawmills, OSB, etc.) that is of primary importance to the state.
3. Maine has an internationally-established engineered wood composites research program at the university including the top Pulp & Paper research and education program in the US at the University.
4. It is a historically “green” state, with governmental support solidly behind this project.
5. Forest stakeholders, large landowners, industry, small business, educational institutions, and government have a history of working together to enhance forest productivity and subsequent business.
6. Maine is already committed to the development of a large scale forest-based bio-refinery as a technology validation and demonstration facility.

The Promise for Students

The REU site will build upon these opportunities by educating students in sustainable forest bio-products, involving them at the deepest level with the research enterprise, and revealing to them the excitement and potential of a career built upon a graduate education.

The UMe REU Site will fund ten students for ten weeks during summer 2008. We are looking for promising junior and senior students from a variety of academic institutions (outside of Maine) including public and private universities and colleges in an effort to promote a diverse group of student researchers.

Research Areas:

• Sustainable forest management and harvesting technology
• Enzyme reaction kinetics
• Bio-products materials development and characterization
• Cellulose nanocomposites
• Economic forecasting and analysis
• Life Cycle Analysis (‘cradle to grave’ assessment of impacts)

Activities:

Students will be involved in a multidisciplinary project effort that includes:

• Fundamental and applied forest bio-products
• Access to state-of-the-art research equipment and a series of evening and weekend recreational activities for student participants and their research teams