Black Hills State University will host a 10-week REU program centered on underground science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) each summer. A cohort of students will participate in exciting underground research projects as well as professional development, social, and outreach activities.

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Each student will receive $600 per week for the duration of the ten-week program ($6,000 total). Additionally, they will receive lodging and all meals at the BHSU residence halls as well as travel assistance to the BHSU, if needed from their home institution.

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Underground science offers exciting possibilities for research. Some of the most important physics experiments of our time are currently in operation at SURF, searching for dark matter and investigating properties of the neutrino. Students will be offered the opportunity to engage in research related to these experiments by assaying materials for radiopurity measurements, using Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the effect of those materials on detectors and testing the chemical purity of noble gases. Additionally, research at SURF is being carried out in the study of life deep underground, with applications to medicine and astrobiology. In particular in the diversity of microbial environments and in the isolation of novel microbes. Complementary chemistry research will also be performed to determine the local environment in which these microbes live. For more information on each project, click here!

**Each project is different. While some projects may require students to be underground every weekday, others might only require going underground 2-5 times during the summer.**

• 18 years or older
• U.S. citizen, national or permanent resident
• Two letters of recommendation from individuals, at least one from a professor, who are familiar with your potential for research.
• An electronic transcript from your university (a scanned copy is acceptable, however we may request an original at a later time).