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Monday, July 10, 2023

For the second consecutive summer, the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in Chemistry (SURE CHEM) Program is providing an immersive summer experience for visiting undergraduates.

The Chemistry and Biochemistry department hosts international students for eight weeks to build their research skills, learn from faculty mentors and immerse themselves in an environment that allows them to work on their English skills.

This year's cohort includes 10 students – up from six last year – with eight students from Juarez and Chihuahua City and two from Puerto Rico. 

The program was launched to recruit potential future graduate students by highlighting the College of Science's state-of-the-art facilities and research opportunities.

UTEP's unique geography offers a recruitment advantage, said program co-lead Dino Villagran, Ph.D.

"One thing we have recognized is that next to El Paso, there is a community with a population of 1.5 million, which we have not really explored as much as we could have," he said. "So we thought we can bring people from Mexico, especially from Juarez."

Villagran said that he and co-lead Chuan (River) Xiao, Ph.D., relaunched the program from the smaller, three-student pre-pandemic cohort in 2019. The framework is based on past programs with international students run by the Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives, better known as COURI.

The Office of International Programs is also assisting with the critical English-language immersion component of SURE CHEM. "While the students from Juarez have some degree of English-language proficiency, it varies among them," said Villagran. "We wanted to give them a lifeline, a little bit of help and extra support."

Other than potential recruitment, the program creates a close relationship with the universities in Mexico from which they recruit. Villagran and Xiao worked with Arturo Barrio, assistant vice president for international relations, who plays a key role in the University's agreements with partner institutions in Mexico and beyond. Barrio connected with universities that have chemistry programs in Juarez and Chihuahua, which resulted in over 40 applications. Villagran and Xiao whittled down the applicants to a smaller pool and conducted video interviews, resulting in this year's cohort. 

Barrio pointed to the program's English-language proficiency component that could potentially create long-term benefits that impact these students for their entire careers.

"Sometimes when you come to the U.S. and you learn English, you learn the general [language] but not the technical for your area or scope of work, he said. "I think that's also a value added that this program is providing, to be able to write or maybe in the future publish in English, which I think is incredible."

University leaders and deans, including Barrio, accompanied UTEP President Heather Wilson on a Spring 2023 trip to Chihuahua City, where they met with educational leaders to strengthen and solidify the relationship between UTEP and the state.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry chair Carlos R. Cabrera Martinez, Ph.D., says that UTEP’s connection with education leaders in Chihuahua shows that the timing is perfect to grow this program.

"It doesn't only benefit the students coming here, but it's going to benefit our faculty to identify researchers from Chihuahua," he said. "This can lead to new collaborative projects and funding opportunities, so if you look at the big picture, this is going to grow."

“"I think the program is fully aligned with UTEP’s recent initiatives," he said. "I believe these kind of programs will leverage the collaboration of the College of Education in the Paso del Norte area and tighten the relationship between U.S. and Mexican institutions."

Cabrera also noted that these students can develop skills with the state-of-the-art labs and cutting-edge technology and be matched with the faculty experts who are leading emerging research. The research projects pair well with UTEP's strengths, including water scarcity and purification, new technologies to monitor disease and contamination in water supplies, and cancer research that takes place in UTEP's Border Biomedical Research Center. He noted that this program can only further establish UTEP’s place as a destination for groundbreaking research.

"That would be my goal, to be the center of research in the Southwest region," he said. "But to do that, we need to include Mexico."