The Marine Science Undergraduate Research Fellowship (MSURF) is a REU site funded by the DOD and NSF through the division of ocean sciences. program aims to provide undergraduate students with the highest quality research training in marine/ocean science or marine biotechnology, outstanding preparation for graduate school, and life-long collegial relationships and associations.

MSURF is a rigorous academic program designed to expose undergraduates to research in marine/ocean science and marine biotechnology, and to provide them with the necessary skills to succeed once in graduate school. In addition to ten weeks of hands-on laboratory training under the supervision of a faculty mentor, students will be trained through five, one-day workshops to (1) write a detailed research proposal, (2) present their work in public seminars, and (3) submit a final report in the format of a research manuscript. For those students interested, the MSURF program administrates a group submission of papers to the NSF supported online Journal for Young Investigators (JYI). This optional excercise is designed to guide students through the excercise of submitting their research work to a peer-reviewed journal and to increase the quality of the applicators to graduate school. The reader is encouraged to to visit JYI to review representative publications. The 2004 MSURF program has currently published 12 papers and the MSURF 2005 program has 8 under review.

Students will also be encouraged to present their work at a professional conference such as ASLO. Each year at least on MSURF student receives a competitive award funding the presentation of their summer work of the upcoming ASLO meeting. In 2003, the MSURF representative was Lea Hollingsworth and the 2004 winner was Melinda Swanson, and the 2005 winner was Jessica Keffer.

MSURF is the continuation of two previous REU site programs at the University of Hawai‘i. The first, administered through the Department of Oceanography from 1990 to 2001, was dedicated to ocean and marine science. The second, administered through the Marine Bioproducts Engineering Research Center, was dedicated to research in marine biotechnology. MSURF represents a merger of these two themes and supports research in both areas.

MSURF faculty mentors and their projects are recruited campus wide from the Colleges of Natural Sciences, Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Engineering, the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, and the Pacific Biomedical Research Institute. A taste of the breadth of projects supported are listed under Past Projects.

Program dates tentative for 2006 is May 30 to August 4.