^Recap

^{The fifth year of Cleveland State University’s REU, "Synthesis, Assembly and Characterization of Soft Matter," ran from May 19th through July 25th, 2025, and hosted a truly interdisciplinary cohort of nine students from around the country, featuring four physics majors, two chemistry majors, one chemical engineering major, one materials science, and one physical chemistry major. The students developed strong research and presentation skills through the work on their individual research projects as well as attending colloquia with leading soft matter researchers and visits to nationally recognized research centers. In addition, the students attended the 20th Annual Northeast Ohio Research Symposium on July 23rd, 2025, where REU students from Cleveland State as well as REU students from Kent State University were able to present their findings from their summer research.}  

^{Research Projects}

^{Nine students worked on a variety of projects directly advised by seven CSU faculty and two CWRU faculty. Below is the list of 2025 REU projects and faculty advisors.} 

• ^{Volume Phase Transition of Polymeric Microgels, Dr. Kiril Streletzky (CSU/Physics)}
• ^{Synthesis of Polymer-Grafted Nanorod Solutions, Drs. Michael Hore (CWRU) and Kiril Streletzky (CSU/Physics)}
• ^{Characterization of Polymer-Grafted Nanorod Solutions, Drs. Kiril Streletzky (CSU/Physics) and Michael Hore (CWRU)}
• ^{Protein-Based Materials, Dr. Nolan Holland (CSU/Chemical and Biomedical Eng)}
• ^{Microfluidic Reactors and Emulsifiers, Drs. Petru Fodor (CSU/Physics) and Chandra Kothapalli (CSU/Chemical and Biomedical Eng)}
• ^{Crystallization of Anisotropic Particles, Drs. Christopher Wirth (CWRU) and Jessica Bickel (CSU/Physics)}
• ^{Flowing Past Cilium, Dr. Andrew Resnick (CSU/Physics)}
• ^{Waste to Energy via Chemical Reactions, Dr. Jorge Gatica (CSU/Chemical and Biomedical Eng)}

^{2025 Cleveland State REU Colloquia Series}

^{Cleveland State University was pleased to host several interdisciplinary soft matter researchers as guest speakers throughout summer of 2025. After the presentations, the speakers stayed with the REU students for lunch where the students were encouraged to have conversations with the researchers about their experiences in STEM and graduate school, their own research project questions, the career path of a scientist, and much more. The following two colloquia took place during the 2025 Cleveland State REU: “Revealing Microdynamics in Rubber Nanocomposites and Vitrimers with X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy,” by Prof. Mark Foster, who obtained his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1987. His current research focuses on the structure and dynamics of polymer interfaces, nanocomposites, networks, and thin films – all at the University of Akron, where he is a Thomas A. Knowles Professor of Polymer Science. “Super-resolution imaging of complex materials: chromatography and extracellular nutrients,” by Dr. Lydia Kisley, who obtained her PhD in Physical Chemistry from Rice University in 2015. Her current research develops microscopes to inform and inspire the design of materials, which she conducts at Case Western Reserve University, where she is Ambrose Swasey Associate Professor of Physics.}

^{REU Tours}

^{During the 2025 Cleveland State Soft Matter REU, students were taken on several special tours, including visits to the Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI) and to the NASA Glenn Research Center.}

^{The trip to AMLCI at Kent State University was led by physics professors Dr. Robin Selinger and Dr. Min Gao. The visit started with short introduction to liquid crystals in general and AMLCI history given by Dr. Selinger. Then students toured several AMLCI characterizations facilities including the Scanning characterizations facilities including the Scanning Electron Microbiology/Transmission Electron Microscopy Lab AMLCI Clean Room Xray Characterization Lab, and CARS Lab) where they learned about the state-of-the-art techniques for liquid crystal characterization. Students also visited several research labs where they learned about living liquid crystals and electro-osmosis enabled by liquid crystals (Lavrentovich Lab), application of liquid crystals to optical beam steering and tunable lenses (Bos Lab), DNA origami for mechanical actuation and DNA based plasmonic device at Schmidt Lab. In these labs students interacted both KSU faculty and graduate students.} 

^{The tour ended with a lunch with Dr. Selinger who described the various  AMLCI-based graduate programs at KSU. For NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), REU students were joined by CSU physics majors and led by CSU instructor and current NASA Glenn researcher Dr. Jeffrey Mackey. He took students on a tour of several fascinating labs including the Telescience Support Center from where experiments are conducted on the Inter-national Space Station (ISS) and SLOPE facility that designs wheels for lunar rovers. Students visited Dr. Mackey's lab for Flow Boiling & Condensation Experiment (FBCE) and learned about FBCE instrumental rack, sent to the ISS and back. They also toured the Zero-G Facility studying microgravity and in the Ice Research Tunnel that probes icing effects on plane components. Finally, students visited the EMI lab reflection chamber where CSU Master student James Taton talked about his summer NASA GRC internship.} 

^{Students were encouraged to talk with all researchers about their projects, research experience, and careers in STEM. As a third organized cohort trip the REU students took a private tour through local National Public Radio (NPR) studio, Ideastream. NPR tour was organized by multimedia journalist Ygal Kaufman, and took students through the Sound of Ideas studio, broadcast booths, control rooms for the news and classical music broadcast. Student got to chat with a radio midday host, Jeff St. Clair, education reporter Conor Morris, and executive editor, Mike McIntyre.} 

^{Life Outside the Lab}

^{Over the summer, students were also able to find some free time away from the lab to explore some of what northeast Ohio has to offer together with the cohort. Students took a scenic walk-through downtown to Cleveland’s Voinovich Park; they explored local neighborhood of Tremont during a Greek festival and a walk along the Towpath; they went on a trip to the Ohio’s own National Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park; and went to Cleveland Jazz Festival in downtown Cleveland. Students also enjoyed a trip to Blossom Music center where they enjoyed a picnic while Cleveland Symphony Orchestra played the score of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with the movie being shown on the screens.}

^{Student Presentations during the Summer}

^{Throughout the summer, REU students had two chances to give formal presentations of their work to an audience of their peers and the REU faculty advisors. The first presentation was a short introductory presentation to give students a chance to gain a basic understanding of their goals and map out a plan on how to achieve them. This was done in the third week of the REU. The final presentation was given in the ninth week of the REU and was a ten-minute summary of all the students had achieved over the summer.} 

^{This included the goals they had accomplished, the results of their research, and the next steps that should be taken in their research. These presentations gave the students a chance to get comfortable presenting and talking about their research to a scientific audience and were a vital part of their experience during the Cleveland State REU.}

^{The 20th Annual Northeast Ohio Research Symposium, hosted by Kent State University}

^{The summer ended with the 20th Annual Northeast Ohio Undergraduate Research Symposium (NOURS), hosted by Kent State University on July 23rd, 2025, where the Soft Matter REU students represented Cleveland State University among peers in REU programs from Kent State University.} 

^{All nine REU students, as well as one CSU student, presented posters summarizing the results of their summer research projects, while two REU students gave an additional 15-minute oral presentation to the symposium audience. This event allowed students to compile all their work from the course of the summer and provided both the opportunity of formal research presentations to an audience of over sixty researchers as well as excellent networking opportunity with students from around the country and faculty from northeast Ohio.}

^{Continuing REU research and future REU Presentations}

^{The REU students are often invited to continue their research project with their faculty if they can.  Joel McRaven and Abigail Horovka have been active continuing some work on their projects. Also, every REU student is strongly encouraged to present REU research at a regional or national level. At this point, we know that 4 students (Joel McRaven, Abigail Horovka, Andrew Joyce, Patrick Barrett) will present at the 2025 Physics and Astronomy Congress in Denver CO. Another student (William Chang) got his poster accepted for the  2025 AIChE Undergraduate Student Poster Competition in Boston, MA. Two more students are planning to present in March of 2026 at the 2025 APS Global Summit in Denver, CO.}