Arne Gericke and Shawn Burdette, professors in the department of chemistry and biochemistry, have received an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Chemistry Division in the amount of $330,160 to provide students from two- and four-year colleges with the opportunity to participate in a 10-week summer undergraduate research experience at WPI. Designed to expose students to impactful research in membrane biochemistry and bioinspired chemical synthesis, this summer program will provide students with the opportunity to be fully engaged in all aspects of scientific discovery including project conception, execution, troubleshooting, interpretation and dissemination. WPI will partner with chemistry faculty from three institutions that are separated from the contiguous 48 states in an effort to recruit a diverse group of students each summer. These institutions are the University of the Virgin Islands, which is a historically black college and university (HBCU), and the Universities of Alaska at Anchorage and at Fairbanks, both of which serve a high population of Native-Alaskan students. Undergraduate students participating in the research experience will be embedded in and interact with an interdisciplinary community of researchers dedicated to tackling challenging problems at the forefront of science.